Three years after Jackie Robinson entered Major League Baseball, Mays became the first black player to play in the Class B Interstate League. Four levels below majorBut much of the country was still rooted in Jim Crow laws and mentality. During the Giants’ weekend series against the Hagerstown Braves at Municipal Stadium, Mays Another Hotel He was shunned by his white teammates and endured racist abuse from fans.
“It didn’t take me long to realize that Hagerstown was the only city in our league below the Mason-Dixon Line,” Mays wrote in his 1988 autobiography, Say Hey. “The first time I stepped onto the field, I heard someone yell, ‘Who’s that black guy walking on the field?’ But I didn’t care.”
Seventy-four years ago this month, a lasting connection was forged between arguably the greatest baseball player of all time and a small town 70 miles northwest of Washington, D.C. Mays, who died last week at age 93, never forgot Hagerstown, either as the place where he began his career with the Giants or the way it treated him. In the decades that followed, he recounted his experiences there in books, documentaries and films. interview Also included is his 1979 Hall of Fame induction speech.
The city hasn’t forgotten Mays, either: Though he never played for the local team, the Hagerstown baseball team has retired his No. 24 jersey multiple times since 2004.
The newest of these franchises is the Hagerstown Flying Boxcars, a team new to the independent Atlantic League that plays in a stadium a mile from where Mays played. On Tuesday, during their first home game since Mays’ death, the Flying Boxcars paid tribute to Mays with a video tribute and a moment of silence.
“He’s probably one of the top five greatest players of all time, so having Willie Mays play his first game at Hagerstown Municipal Stadium has always been a source of pride for our community,” Flying Boxcars general manager David Brenkstone said. “He’s always had a special place in Hagerstown minor league baseball history.”
But some believe Mays’ experience in Hagerstown is an often-overlooked aspect of the city’s history. The hotel where Mays once stayed in the Red Line district’s Jonathan Street neighborhood is now a church parking lot. Municipal Stadium was demolished in 2022. Meritus Park, the new downtown stadium that opened last month, does not yet have a permanent memorial to Mays.
Tekesha Martinez, Hagerstown’s first black mayor, said Mays’ history in the city “is not celebrated enough.” [or] He’s known in Hagerstown and around our county.”
“All I know are snippets of the story,” Martinez said. “If I’d known there was someone like Willie Mays who walked down Jonathan Street and played in our town … I would have been a lot prouder as a black woman to be from Hagerstown.”
Mays had grown up in Jim Crow-era Alabama, but the racism and segregation he experienced in Hagerstown left an indelible impression on him. When he played in Washington, D.C., or near Baltimore, there were no restrictions on where he could stay. “But in Hagerstown, halfway between those two cities, I couldn’t stay with the rest of my team,” he wrote in his autobiography.
The Giants tried to support Mays. A group of White’s teammates I snuck into his room at the Harmon Hotel. He slept on the floor to keep him company, and his manager, Chick Genovese, dined with him in the city’s segregated restaurants.
Still, his time with the Giants marked Mays’ first time as the only black player on a team. When Mays played for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues, he and his teammates had faced racism together. In Hagerstown, he faced it alone.
“It was the first time I’d ever traveled anywhere alone, because even when I was traveling in quarantine with the Barrons, at least we were all quarantined in the same place at the same time,” Mays wrote.
Mays’ experience in Hagerstown influenced not only the baseball star but also the town itself: in 2004, the city’s now-defunct minor league team, the Hagerstown Suns, asked Mays to return, which he accepted, creating an opportunity for redemption for Hagerstown 54 years later.
“We thought it was important for the community to have a reunion moment with Willie Mays,” said former Suns general manager Kurt Landes, who organized Mays’ visit. “Obviously, we all knew he wasn’t well-received the first time he came to the community. … So this was a chance for the community to get excited about having him back.” [and] “We’re all excited to have the opportunity to redeem ourselves. It felt like a little bit of a homecoming for everyone.”
On Aug. 9, 2004, Mays, 73, became the guest of honor in the city that had once mocked him. He packed a downtown hotel ballroom, and, according to a story in the Hagerstown Herald-Mail, some attendees paid as much as $1,000 for autographs and a personal meet-and-greet. When Landes introduced Mays to thunderous applause, Mays began to cry.
Later that day, Mays returned to Municipal Stadium before the Suns’ game against the Asheville Tourists, where he met with the players, threw the first pitch, and received a standing ovation.
“He came back in a completely different situation than when he was here in 1950,” said Dan Spedden, a longtime baseball fan from Hagerstown who attended the ceremony. “He was very generous. … He details in his book how he was treated here in 1950, but when he came back in 2004, I didn’t see any of that hostility. He was happy to be here and happy to be so welcomed.”
While many fans left with autographed keepsakes that day, Landes left with a unique keepsake: Learning that Mays loved homemade chili, Landes and his wife packed the family’s recipe in a slow cooker and brought it to the ballpark. Mays enjoyed three heaping bowls of chili, and Landes took home a Mays spoon as a souvenir.
“I put it in a frame and kept it in my basement,” said Landes, president and general manager of the Class AAA Lehigh Valley IronPigs, “and then my wife and I, whenever we made chili, we called it Willie Chili.”
Shortly before Mays’ visit, then-Mayor William Bleichner announced the city would rededicate a road alongside Municipal Stadium in Mays’ honor, but nine months later, the City Council voted to preserve the old name, East Memorial Boulevard, after veterans groups argued the road should remain to commemorate their service.
Some saw the incident as a repeat of Hagerstown’s past.
“Willie Mays is a military veteran,” said Spaden, who is president of the Hagerstown/Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau. “Maybe the stain of racism never really faded. There’s still some of it in a lot of people, and when it came out, I was appalled and embarrassed.”
A few years before his death, Mays said he made peace with his history with Hagerstown.
“They were trying to make up for the grief I’d felt all those years ago,” Mays wrote in her 2020 memoir, “24.” “You can’t blame the town as a whole, as I thought. The town of 1950 didn’t hurt me. It was the people who did. I’m glad to be back.”
