Baseball is almost like oxygen for Willie Mays. He spent a month this year with his old team, the San Francisco Giants, at spring training in Scottsdale, Arizona, where baseball’s greatest living player served as unofficial clubhouse greeter. In normal times, Mays would now be a regular presence at the Giants’ home games, sharing stories and laughs.
“Baseball is his whole outlet, his way to express himself,” said John Shea, co-author of Mays’ new book, “24: Life Stories and Lessons From the Say Hey Kid” and a longtime baseball writer for The San Francisco Chronicle. “He doesn’t have access to all the players and the people for that taste of baseball, which he just lives for.