Sunday, January 10, 2016

Willie Mays in Minneapolis

The "Say Hey Kid" spent just 35 games in Minneapolis in 1951, but he left quite the impression. His Batting Average of .477 was impressive - he averaged 2 hits per game played. He also scored more than a run per game. He hit 8 Homers for the Millers before the Giants called him up.  Here's an article on his time in MN from a book called Swinging for the Fences: Black Baseball in Minnesota .

The "past year" stats are from his rookie season in New York - the lifetime stats are his time in the Minor leagues (1950 in Trenton and 1951 in Minneapolis).

He's also featured with the Millers on a card from the Ted Williams Company. Ted also had a brief stay in Minneapolis.


5 comments:

  1. Hey! those are sweet cards of THE KID!

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  2. Those are two nice cards... I added the top one to my COMC shopping cart.

    Back when the Giants were looking to leave New York, they were also considering a move to Minneapolis if the Dodgers didn't want to move west with them. I sometimes wonder what baseball would be like now if we had the Minneapolis Millers instead of the San Francisco Giants.

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  3. I've never seen these before - excellent finds!

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  4. Oh man, those are great! I think Willie earned a call up after averaging 2 hits a game.

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