It's difficult to imagine anyone leaving a person of Martin Luther King Jr.'s stature in awe, but Giants legend Willie Mays managed to do just that.
Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., tweeted a picture Sunday of King meeting "The Say Hey Kid" in Los Angeles in 1963, just months after King gave his "I Have A Dream" speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
MLK SAYS “HEY” to the “SAY HEY KID”: If there was any doubt about Willie May’s greatness just look at the smile on Dr. King’s face when the two met in LA in 1963! Says it all! @NLBMuseumKC @vgregorian @JPosnanski @MLB @Royals @JayHarrisESPN @SFGiants @MLB_PLAYERS @sn_mlb @espn RT pic.twitter.com/G9zcpMyp3Z
— Bob Kendrick (@nlbmprez) January 18, 2021
Prior to his assassination in 1968, King fostered relationships with athletes. As Dave Zirin, writing for Sports Illustrated in 2010, noted, King had a close, private relationship with legendary boxer Muhammad Ali. King also met with athletes to the Olympic Project for Human Rights shortly before his assassination.
Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two of the athletes who organized the Olympic Project, protested from the medal stand at the 1968 Olympics by raising their gloved fists in the Black Power salute. Carlos later told Zirin he did so thinking of King.
"Dr. King was in my mind and heart when I raised my fist on that podium," Carlos said.
Nearly seven years after they were pictured meeting in LA, Mays helped honor King in the same city.
