Willie Mays’ 1st NFT to Feature HS Diploma; Proceeds Go to Say Hey Foundation | Bleacher Report

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AP Photo/Ben Mar­got, File

Major League Base­ball icon Willie Mays is get­ting into the NFT busi­ness for a good cause. 

Per ESP­N’s Tim Kurkjian, Mays will begin sell­ing a non­fun­gi­ble token fea­tur­ing his high school diplo­ma Sun­day as part of his 90th birth­day cel­e­bra­tion. All pro­ceeds go to the Say Hey Foundation.

Kurkjian not­ed that Mays’ diplo­ma from Alaba­ma’s Fair­field Indus­tri­al High School said his assigned pro­fes­sion would be in “clean­ing, dye­ing and pressing.”

Mays spoke to Kurkjian about mov­ing into the world of NFTs: 

“I had to get them explained to me. I’m used to tokens you can hold in your hand. But I guess peo­ple col­lect them the way they do trad­ing cards. And those cards are worth a lot of mon­ey now. And I fig­ure any­thing like that, that peo­ple can enjoy and that help me sup­port the kids, is some­thing worth doing.”

Oth­er aspects includ­ed with the NFT are one of Mays’ high school report cards, a scout­ing report, his Negro Leagues con­tract with the Birm­ing­ham Barons that paid him $250 per month, and the telegram inform­ing the Barons that the New York Giants pur­chased his con­tract for $10,000. 

Kurkjian not­ed the report describes him “as a ‘col­ored boy,’ as all Black play­ers were before Jack­ie Robin­son broke the col­or bar­ri­er in 1947.”

The scout also wrote that Mays “has the best reflex­es and coor­di­na­tion I’ve seen in a long time” and would be con­sid­ered “a fran­chise play­er” if he were white. 

The Say Hey Foun­da­tion was estab­lished in 2000 with the goal of giv­ing every child a chance by offer­ing under­priv­i­leged youth pos­i­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties and safer com­mu­ni­ties. Pro­ceeds go to estab­lish­ing base­ball pro­grams for under­priv­i­leged youth in Alaba­ma and restor­ing youth base­ball facil­i­ties at the Barons’ home sta­di­um of Rick­wood Field. 

Mays made his MLB debut with the Giants on May 25, 1951. He became arguably the great­est base­ball play­er of all time over the course of his 23-year career. 

The “Say Hey Kid” had a .301/.384/.557 slash line with 660 homers in 3,005 games. He was named to the All-Star team 24 times (MLB added a sec­ond All-Star Game from 1959 to 1962), won 12 Gold Glove awards and was a two-time Nation­al League MVP. He won the World Series with the Giants in 1954.

Mays was elect­ed to the Base­ball Hall of Fame on the first bal­lot in 1979. He was pre­sent­ed the Pres­i­den­tial Medal of Free­dom in 2015 by Pres­i­dent Barack Obama. 



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