The Giants are nowhere close to reaching the World Series this season, but now the franchise will be engrained into one of the highest honors a baseball player can receive.
On Friday, Major League Baseball announced that the World Series Most Valuable Player award will be renamed in honor of Giants all-time great Willie Mays. The award will still be presented by Chevrolet and officially renamed to the Willie Mays World Series Most Valuable Player award.
Mays began his illustrious 22-year career when he debuted in 1951, and received the Rookie of the Year award after batting .274 with 20 home runs. After taking a leave in 1953 to serve in the military, he returned to baseball and helped the Giants to their final playoff appearance in New York.
It was during the 1954 World Series that Mays made an incredible over-the-head basket catch deep in center field at Polo Grounds in Game 1, that propelled the Giants to a world championship. Today marks the 63rd anniversary of what simply became known as “The Catch,” and will forever be an iconic moment in franchise history.
The following year, the first World Series MVP was awarded in 1955 to Johnny Podres of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Since then, Edgar Renteria (2010), Pablo Sandoval (2012) and Madison Bumgarner (2014) received the honor in a Giants uniform.
Although he never received the World Series MVP award in his career, as one of the greatest players ever, hardly anyone would say he is undeserving of this affiliation.
On top of two regular season MVP awards and 24 All-Star appearances, Mays was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1979, was named one of baseball’s four “Greatest Living Players” at the 2015 All-Star Game, also receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in the same year.