Willie Mays was one of the greatest baseball players of all time, but even he tried his damnedest to get any advantage he could.
The Hall of Famer died earlier this week at the age of 93, over 50 years after his illustrious career ended.
Tributes have poured in since then, and one of Mays’ fellow Hall of Fame opponents, Johnny Bench, remembered the New York and San Francisco Giants legend on OutKick’s “Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich.”
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“Willie was just absolutely the best. He came up to home plate and had that swagger,” Bench recalled. “He’d swing that bat back and forth, his head would go back.”
However, those head movements were apparently in an effort to know what pitch was coming, says Bench.
“Well, he had this thing, he’d want to steal signs,” Bench said. “His first base coach was Peanuts Lowrey, and Peanuts would look around out of the coaching box, trying to see the catcher giving him signs. If he called a curveball or a fastball, supposedly, if Willie hit a home run, Peanuts got a new suit.
“So I’m back there catching, and Willie is swing back and forth, his head’s going back, and I’m just squatting back there. And he does this about seven or eight times. Finally, he steps out of the box and said ‘you gonna call a pitch or what?’ I said ‘yeah, as soon as you quit looking back here.’ He was trying to look back and steal my signs, ‘oh man, you got me! You got me!'”
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Mays was one of the greatest ballplayers to ever grace a baseball diamond, beginning in 1948 in the Negro Leagues. He made his MLB debut as a 20-year-old playing for the New York Giants. He would go on to be a 24-time All-Star, two-time MVP, 12-time Gold Glover, two-time All-Star Game MVP, Rookie of the Year and 1954 World Series champion in an illustrious career that led to an easy Hall of Fame induction.
Mays was known for his ability to wow crowds with thunderous home runs, slick baserunning and miraculous plays in center field. One of the most iconic plays ever in MLB came in that 1954 World Series and was forever called “The Catch.”
In his illustrious career, he hit .301 with 660 career home runs. He is one of just four players ever to have 3,000 hits with at least 600 of them being home runs (Hank Aaron, Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez).
He ended his career in 1973 with the New York Mets, where his No. 24 is also retired.
Mays, who spent most of 1952 and all of 1953 serving in the Army, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by then-President Obama in 2015.
MLB is set to play a regular-season game on Thursday at the historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, where Mays began his professional baseball career in the Negro League with the Black Barons, between the Giants and St. Louis Cardinals.
Fox News’ Scott Thompson contributed to this report.
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