Did Willie Mays play for the Birmingham Black Barons?

Major League Baseball, and the sports world at large, lost an all-time great on Tuesday when Willie Mays passed away at the age of 93. Mays is on the short list of the greatest players in baseball history, and his combination of speed, power, and the unbridled joy with which he played is unmatched to this day.

Mays was one of the last living links to the Negro Leagues, and his passing is made even sadder by the fact that it occurred just two days before MLB at Rickwood Field, a special game between the St. Louis Cardinals and Mays' old team, the San Francisco Giants, that will be played at the oldest professional ballpark in the United States, a Negro League institution, and the place where Mays once roamed the outfield as a teenager.

Rickwood Field was built in 1910, and for over 40 years it was the home of the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues. The historic field saw many famous players in its decades-long heyday (Major League Baseball claims that more than half of the 351 members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame either played, managed, umpired, or led a team at Rickwood Field at some point in their careers), but the most famous player to ever play for the Black Barons was undoubtedly the Say Hey Kid himself, Willie Mays.

When did Willie Mays play for the Birmingham Black Barons?

Willie Mays was born in the Alabama town of Westfield, just a few minutes outside of Birmingham. In high school, he joined the Black Barons at the age of 16, even winning the Negro League Rookie of the Year award in his first season.

Because Mays was paid to play with the Black Barons, he wasn't permitted to play on his high school team, though he only played home games while school was in session in his first season so as not to miss class. He was with the Black Barons from 1948-1950, but left the team shortly after graduation when he was drafted by the New York Giants.

Willie Mays Birmingham Black Barons stats

Statistics from the Negro Leagues have traditionally been sparse at best, and unreliable at worst. Great work has been done in recent years to get a more complete statistical snapshot of the Negro Leagues, though, culminating in the recent addition of Negro Leagues stats in the MLB record books.

Not all Negro Leagues stats have been included, however, due to MLB's "double-entry account system," which in short requires more than just a newspaper account of a game to be deemed official. Because many games from that era don't have surviving box scores to corroborate other accounts of the game, most of Mays' time with the Black Barons was not added to his career MLB stats.

In total, Mays only had 10 hits added to his career total, meaning most of his Black Barons career remains unofficial. The Negro Southern League Museum, established in 2014 in Birmingham, has a more complete accounting, though, even if those records haven't been verified to MLB's satisfaction at this point in time.

According to the NSLM, Mays played 25 games for Birmingham in 1948, posting a .262 average across 84 at-bats as the Black Barons won the Negro American League championship. Mays played a much fuller slate the next year, posting a .311 average with five homers, 40 RBIs and 11 steals in 80 games.

The NSLM's records show that Mays played just 27 games in 1950, his final season with the Black Barons, likely due to being drafted by the Giants in June. In that time, he had a .330 average with four homers, 28 RBIs and two steals.

Why did Willie Mays leave the Birmingham Black Barons?

Mays left the Black Barons after being drafted by the New York Giants shortly after his high school graduation. He played 116 games in the Giants' minor league system over parts of two seasons, before being called up to the majors early in 1951. He played in 121 games, batted .274 and hit 20 homers in his rookie season in the bigs, eventually winning the Rookie of the Year award in the first year of what would go on to be one of the most decorated careers in MLB history.