Saying a final goodbye to Willie Mays, baseball’s ‘Say hey kid’
- Written by Lincoln Mitchell, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Willie Mays playing stickball in Harlem in 1954.Bettmann/Getty ImagesIn 1959, when Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev visited San Francisco and members of the International Longshoreman’s Union greeted him with cheers, newspaperman Frank Coniff quipped: “This is the damndest city. They cheer Khruschev and boo Willie Mays.”
It was the...




