Academy Award-winning filmmaker Spike Lee was among the many who paid homage to the late Willie Mays at Mays’s Oracle Park statue Wednesday, so who knows, maybe Spike Lee will show up at the ballpark for Thursday night’s free showing of Giants’ Negro Leagues tribute game.
This evening, your San Francisco Giants will host a commemorative free broadcast at Oracle Park of the Giants-Cardinals MLB at Rickwood Field game that will honor the Negro Leagues, in memory of their recently departed legend Willie Mays. (The game starts at 4:15 pm.) And if you’re going, you might want to keep an eye out for Oscar-winning filmmaker Spike Lee, because Lee stopped by the Willie Mays statue at Oracle Park Wednesday, as a shrine to Mays had popped up there after Mays’s passing on Tuesday.
Spike Lee just pulled up to Willie Mays Plaza
byu/hyfee510 inbayarea
He was caught by KRON4’s Sara Stinson, and can be heard in the above video saying, “I paid my respects.”
The full video of the interview can be seen above. Lee recalled that “I just remember growing up, my father would tell me that when the Giants were in New York and the Polo Grounds, [Mays] could walk to the Polo Grounds, because he was living in Harlem. And he would play stickball with the kids after the game.”
“I think Major League Baseball should retire the number 24 for all the teams,” Lee added in his remarks. “I don’t want to hear about Babe Ruth or nobody else. I’m talking about the Say Hey Kid.”
Willie Mays actually appeared in one of those 1994 Spike Lee “Mars Blackmon” Nike commercials. More of Lee’s thoughts on Mays can be seen below.
Related: SF Giants Legend Willie Mays Has Died at 93 [SFist]
Image: officialspikelee via Instagram
