Few American cities have inspired more rapturous prose than San Francisco. Described as “the City of Shining Hills” and “the Paris of the West,” it lies on a thumb-shaped peninsula over forty-two rolling hills, with the Pacific Ocean on one side and a bay on the other. The California Coast Ranges serve as a rugged backdrop. The city has a distinctive, almost lyrical climate—the swirling afternoon winds, the pale autumnal sunshine, the hazy trademark fog, celebrated as “wistfully curling tendrils” that envelop the city in romance and mystery. The San Andreas Fault adds a subterranean peril. In 1958, its history could be plumbed for both triumph and tragedy: the riches of the storied Gold Rush (1849) and the heartbreak of a staggering earthquake (1906); the splendor of the Golden Gate Bridge (1937) and the hedonism of a port catering to its seafarers (every night). San Francisco was a magnet for writers, poets, and musicians, a haven for various Bohemian movements since the 1840s, all of which created a satisfying image of tolerance and sophistication.
Long before the Giants arrived, it was also a baseball town. The San Francisco Seals were a charter member of the Pacific Coast League in 1903, the mild climate allowing for a longer season than even the majors played. In 1931, the team moved into its own ballpark, Seals Stadium, in the Mission District, and the following year fans saw for the first time the eighteen-year-old son of an Italian fisherman who grew up on the North Shore. Joe DiMaggio, in his second year with the Seals, hit .340, had a hitting streak of sixty-one games, and created a standard by which all future center fielders in San Francisco would be compared.
The Seals were winners, racking up championships every decade, and they long flourished under manager Lefty O’Doul, a former major league player who was a San Francisco native and fan favorite. In its final season, 1957, the team won its fourteenth title before being dispatched to Phoenix, where it became a minor league affiliate of the Giants. The ball that recorded the final out of the San Francisco Seals was sent to Cooperstown.
Joe DiMaggio wasn’t San Francisco’s only connection to the major leagues. The city had produced quite a few star players, including Joe’s brothers Vince and Dom. Also from the area were pitcher Lefty Gomez, catcher Ernie Lombardi, and shortstop Joe Cronin, all future Hall of Famers, as well as second baseman Tony Lazzeri, who was part of the Yankees’ Murderers’ Row, and first baseman Dolph Camilli, who was the National League MVP in 1941.
Baseball had deep roots in San Francisco, and the fans did not consider themselves novices. Pro football arrived in 1946, when the 49ers became the first major league professional sports team in the Bay Area. This breakthrough affirmed the area’s rising economic power in the post-war boom years, but without a big league baseball team, San Francisco was still a minor league town. Major League Baseball, for its part, needed San Francisco as well as Los Angeles as much as those cities needed the big leagues. As early as 1947, a monograph was prepared for the majors that described the country’s demographic shift to the west and the big leagues’ current geographic imbalance. The major leagues had one team in Cincinnati, the twentieth largest city in the United States and Canada, and two teams in St. Louis, the tenth largest city, but there were no teams in Los Angeles and San Francisco, the third and ninth largest, respectively. Fear of air travel was one impediment. United Airlines had introduced the DC-6 in 1946, so a team could fly from New York to Los Angeles in less than half the time it took to reach St. Louis by train. But most major league executives, fearing that an entire team could be lost in one disaster, preferred the rails. By the late 1950s, those fears had receded.
San Francisco aggressively pursued big league baseball even before it had a specific team in sight. In 1954, the voters approved a $5 million general obligation bond to provide for the construction of a new stadium. A two-thirds majority was needed. All four daily newspapers supported it, as did the entire business community, and that commitment helped persuade Horace Stoneham to scrap his plan to go to Minneapolis and move to San Francisco instead. One potential problem: Stoneham feared that “San Francisco” had too many letters to fit on the team’s road uniform. There was plenty of space.
While San Francisco celebrated its new team, the Giants still had to make a strong first impression and convince the loyal Seals fans that they were worthy. For that matter, the Dodgers had to win over Los Angeles as well. The problem was, neither team was particularly good. In 1957, the Dodgers finished in third place, eleven games out of first place, and their stars were gone or old. Jackie Robinson had retired; Roy Campanella’s career was over. Other aging Dodger luminaries—Don Newcombe (thirty-two), Gil Hodges (thirty-four), Pee Wee Reese (thirty-nine)—were past their prime. The team still had Duke Snider and a young fireballer, Don Drysdale, who had won seventeen games in 1957, not to mention an undeveloped pitcher named Sandy Koufax, but the Boys of Summer were past their moment in the sun.
The Giants, buried in the standings for two years, may have been in worse shape. By 1958, most of the top players from the 1954 championship were gone. The Opening Day roster had six rookies, four of whom were in the starting lineup. By all rights, Stoneham should have been the team’s most effective promoter; he could have owned the city. But, separated from his wife for many years and reclusive by nature, he was a solitary figure who never immersed himself in San Francisco’s social or philanthropic circles, so he proved painfully inept as the franchise headliner. At his first public event in the city, at a dinner of about 150 former ballplayers from the semipro ranks, he received a hero’s welcome amid a steady flow of beer. Then he tried to address the crowd. He stood up and rambled, at times incoherently, before finally sinking into his chair and mumbling, “Some of us drink too much.”
All was not lost. The Giants still had Willie Mays. At twenty-six, he hadn’t even reached his prime. His was the face of baseball’s westward expansion.
WILLIE MAYS GOES WEST, cried the cover blurb of Look on April 29, 1958. (Winston Churchill appeared on the cover as well.) The story on Mays featured fifteen photographs across five pages showing his first visit to his new city as a Giant: standing at Seal Rocks to glimpse the sea lions, viewing the Golden Gate Bridge shrouded in fog, stepping off a cable car, visiting Fisherman’s Wharf, chatting with Mayor Christopher, selecting Dungeness crab at an open market, and strolling across the lonely outfield of Seals Stadium.
On April 28, the cover of Life featured Mays, in a dark suit, white shirt, white tie, and white kerchief, riding in a convertible during San Francisco’s parade welcoming the Giants. Mays was the only Giant on the cover. The actual story isn’t about Mays at all; called “California Goes Big League in a Big Way,” it’s about Los Angeles and San Francisco welcoming the major leagues, but Mays carried the banner for both cities. The Sporting News told its readers: “When he goes to L.A., Mays will be more the hero than all the Dodgers. In his exhibition forays into L.A. in recent years, Willie performed such prodigious feats that the Angelinos probably would settle for Mays as a major league club all by himself.”
This media focus served the Giants well. Stoneham never believed in marketing; he thought if his team won enough games or hit enough home runs, the fans would come in droves. But he had to make some efforts in his new town, so he relied on his star. Mays was the only Giant player in San Francisco in the off-season, and he stayed busy. He attended a “Welcome Willie” dinner that raised money for the Urban League of the Bay Area; he spoke at a benefit for police widows and orphans; he appeared at three Macy’s stores, where he gave out autographed pictures of himself; he met with politicians and business leaders and was photographed as the first Giant putting on his new San Francisco cap.
He said all the right things. In 1957, when a Pittsburgh reporter raised the possibility of Mays’s playing a “dirty trick” and not moving to California, he responded, “Mister, I like to play ball and I’d walk barefooted to San Francisco just to get into the lineup.” The quote was published in the San Francisco Examiner .
In January, Mays was the center of one of the more unusual press conferences in baseball history. The Giants wanted to promote the signing of his 1958 contract, which would pay him $67,500, placing him third behind Ted Williams ($100,000) and Stan Musial ($80,000). Mays, Stoneham, and Rigney met with the press at Seals Stadium; without a press office, they convened in the ladies’ powder room (it became a media room by Opening Day). Surrounded by fuchsia walls, lipstick mirrors, pink drapes, and—according to the Sporting News— “feminine paraphernalia,” the men stood before television cameras and photographers to discuss batting streaks (“When I’m in a slump, anybody can get me out,” Willie said. “Two years ago, I went 0-for-30 against the Cubs”) and using San Francisco’s hills for winter training (Mays said he wasn’t “much of a hiker”). Also in the room was Marghuerite, wearing a stunning, full-length mink coat, and their white poodle, Pepi, who was battling the flu. “He’s just fine now,” Willie said.
The local press began its tributes to Mays at the end of the 1957 season, when several newspapers sent reporters to the Polo Grounds. On August 13, the San Francisco Chronicle reported: “San Franciscans who have been worrying out loud whether the sixth place Giants are good enough for the city should have been here Sunday to watch Willie Mays, baseball’s greatest one man show. As long as the Giants have Willie, you have to welcome them west.”
Reporters interviewed New York sportswriters, who reaffirmed Mays’s singular abilities. “When San Francisco fans see Willie Mays, they’ll forget about everybody else,” New York writer Jim McCulley told the Examiner . Kenny Smith, who’d been covering the Giants since John McGraw was manager, said, Mays is “the greatest. And there’ll come a time when Mays walking on the field is as important as the score.”
All the while, the Giant officials did their part to drum up interest—and ticket sales—by making extravagant predictions about Mays. On February 16, Parade published a story by Bill Rigney, “Mays will hit 61 HOMERS.” Rigney explained that the Polo Grounds, with the alleys at 450 feet and center field at 480 feet, was a terrible park for Mays, whose power was between left center and right center. He estimated that in 1957, Mays hit at least ten balls more than 460 feet that were caught; in any other park, they would have been home runs. To avoid long outs, Mays tried to pull the ball over the short fence in the left field corner, which led to bad habits.
Seals Stadium was perfect for Mays, according to his manager. Dead center was only 414 feet, while left center ranged from 370 to 404 feet. The long outs in the Polo Grounds would now be homers. “Willie Mays, either this season or during a season soon to come, will belt sixty-one homers—and maybe even more—for a new big league record,” he concluded.
The park’s dimensions, Rigney wrote, were only part of a new, ascendant Mays. In Seals Stadium, the wind blows to left center, Mays’s sweet spot, and the weather itself would be a boon—the heat and humidity in the East are brutal, whereas San Francisco is “delightfully cool,” which will preserve Willie’s strength. Mays always plays hard, Rigney assured readers, but the empty stands at the Polo Grounds drained everyone’s energy, and even Willie “can’t help but try harder for west coast fans who have shown such great enthusiasm for the Giants.” Rigney himself was going to give his star some help by not overusing him in spring training—last year, he played almost every game for six or seven innings, and he wore down during the season.
“Willie stands 5'11", weighs 185 pounds, and there isn’t an ounce of fat on him. He has tremendous stamina and he’s not injury-prone.... He’s only 26. Ruth didn’t hit his 60 homers till he was 32. Willie, in other words, has at least five or six more seasons to shoot for the record.... I predict [San Francisco] will not only help my center fielder hit 61 home runs, it also will help him—the season he does break the record—to hit .380 and drive in 150 runs.” In the Sporting News, Rigney predicted that Mays would win the Triple Crown as well.
These predictions didn’t seem outlandish in light of Mays’s recent barnstorming visit to San Francisco. After the 1957 season, he had led a black troupe there in November, and his squad played two games against the local minor leaguers. During one at-bat, a retired Pacific Coast League pitcher knocked Mays to the dirt with a high, sailing fastball. On the next pitch, Mays hit a 450-foot drive over the clock in left center, one of the longest homers ever seen in Seals Stadium. In two games, Mays collected two homers and four singles in nine at-bats.
Nonetheless, Mays didn’t care for Rigney’s predictions; he had always ridiculed speculation that he could break Ruth’s record. It wasn’t that important to him, and the media scrutiny made him uncomfortable. Offensively, he strove for consistency, which meant a .300 average, 100 RBIs, and 100 runs scored. Rigney created a set of expectations that he didn’t share or even covet.
Familiar with such hype, Mays had been cast in the savior’s role before, but San Franciscans wanted to see for themselves if their transplanted New Yorker really could walk on (Pacific) water. Proud and provincial, the city didn’t need East Coast writers to designate their heroes, and the only player in San Francisco history who’d ever posted the kind of numbers that Rigney had projected was Joe DiMaggio, playing for the Seals. The town might not be big enough for two baseball legends.
Mays had no interest in toppling sacred records or revered icons. Adjusting to a new ballpark would be challenge enough. He just wanted to play ball, and while he felt he would miss the familiar surroundings of New York and the unconditional love of the fans, he was excited about the opportunity. Maybe a new city—a new uniform, new stadium, new fans—would end the Giants’ doldrums; the team needed a fresh start, and Mays himself might benefit from a different kind of life. But even before he put on a San Francisco uniform, he found himself in the center of a controversy that involved race, housing, and the city’s cherished self-image.
Shortly after Mays completed his barnstorming tour, he and Marghuerite went house hunting in San Francisco. They quickly found something they liked, and on November 7, Willie paid a $100 binder as part of an offer to a real estate agent. There was no response. Mays was about to make a second offer when the house was mysteriously taken off the market. Someone had tipped off the Chronicle to these events, and word began to spread. Edward Howden, the director of the Council of Civic Unity of San Francisco, formed after World War II to combat racial inequality, received a call from Mays’s broker, Charles Turner. But neither the Chronicle nor Howden could confirm that Mays had been victimized. Mays himself didn’t want to draw attention to his efforts, and no public comment was made. (The timing of such a story would have been embarrassing for San Francisco, which was hosting a UNESCO conference, with prominent Americans and Asians in attendance.)
Willie and Marghuerite finally found a new, two-story home at 175 Miraloma Drive, next to the exclusive planned community of St. Francis Wood. Only three miles from Seals Stadium, the neighborhood was one of the highest points in the city and known as “the flossiest part” of town. The brick and redwood house had three bedrooms, a den, and a two-car garage. Set on a steep, winding hill, its most distinctive feature was a span of large glass windows that offered a sweeping view of the Pacific Ocean. Marghuerite toured the house with the builder, after which Willie offered $37,500 in cash—the asking price. The couple then waited. One day passed, but neither the builder nor his broker returned their calls. Once again, Turner reached out to Howden. At least this time the house was still on the market; it simply wasn’t available to Willie Mays. Howden called the developer.
Walter A. Gnesdiloff was a builder who earned most of his money working for other contractors. He agreed to see Howden, and in a lengthy Sunday meeting, he said that he wanted to sell the house to Mays and had no objections on racial grounds. However, not long after he received Mays’s offer, he and his wife began receiving phone calls from agitated residents in the Miraloma neighborhood. Some identified themselves; others were anonymous. Their message was the same: Gnesdiloff would be doing a “terrible thing” if he accepted Mays’s offer because a Negro family would lower property values for the entire neighborhood. He also received calls from the lawyer of a builder who lived in that neighborhood and from a second builder who had several houses on the market in the vicinity. No direct threats had been issued, he told Howden, but these calls made him fear that his own livelihood would be in danger if he went through with the sale to Mays. He explained that “improvement groups,” which can disapprove new buildings, would reject his future construction plans, and the builders for whom he worked wouldn’t hire him.
Gnesdiloff said he had one other problem. His real estate broker, Peter Morgan, the owner of Village Realty, had told him that his firm would have nothing to do with a sale to a Negro and would not even accept Mays’s offer.
Howden found Gnesdiloff credible but naive. At no point did the builder display any sign of racial animus, and he was clearly shaken by the barrage of phone calls. But he also had no understanding of this matter’s significance. Willie Mays was an American hero whose arrival in San Francisco marked a watershed moment in the city’s history. If he wasn’t allowed to buy a house because of his race, the rejection would mock San Francisco’s image of tolerance and sophistication while making it unworthy of its big league aspirations.
Howden explained that it would produce embarrassing headlines across the country and pleaded with him on the grounds of civic pride and patriotism. He also presented evidence that refuted the claims that Negroes moving into white neighborhoods lowered property values. Gnesdiloff expressed particular concern about the next-door neighbor. At Howden’s suggestion, he called the neighbor and asked if they could meet with her that evening. She agreed, but when they arrived, she did not answer the bell, nor did she respond the next day to a note left for her.
That Monday, Howden worked the phones, speaking with Mays’s broker and Gnesdiloff, seeking a way to make the transaction succeed while keeping the matter out of the press. Someone suggested that the builder sell the house to a third party, who would then sell it to Mays, but Howden wanted the immediate parties to work out their differences. Gnesdiloff remained noncommittal, so Howden placed a call to Mayor Christopher and asked one of his aides if the mayor would speak to Gnesdiloff. Christopher learned of the crisis that evening when he returned from an overseas trip.
By Tuesday, city supervisor Francis McCarty, who had also worked hard to bring the Giants to San Francisco, had spoken to Gnesdiloff; members of the mayor’s staff had left messages for him as well. Meanwhile, Willie and Marghuerite were told by their broker that another home had been found, but they said they weren’t interested. They insisted on the Miraloma house.
It became clear by Wednesday that city officials believed the solution was to find another house, any house, that the Mayses would accept. Marghuerite actually looked at one but wasn’t impressed. The mayor’s office was now receiving complaints about Christopher’s intervention. His aides continued to scramble, and they found yet another house, later described by Howden as “in a good neighborhood but on a short street which has become heavily Negro in ownership.” Again, the Mayses weren’t interested, and tensions began to rise. While Willie showed little emotion, Marghuerite was insulted at the narrow choices, but the mayor’s office found her too selective. Howden later wrote, “Not everyone in official circles understood why Mrs. Mays did not respond enthusiastically to the implication that this was the only street in their price bracket where they could have a home.”
Gnesdiloff provided no help, citing complaints from two builders as a reason for not selling to Mays. Howden again warned him of the imminent public relations disaster for the entire city. They agreed to see the principal objector, a builder named Martin Gaehwiler, who also lived in the Miraloma neighborhood. Before the meeting, Howden and Gnesdiloff visited Willie and Marghuerite for the first time. The couple made it clear that only the Miraloma house—and the house they had originally bid on—appealed to them. Howden recalled, “They had no taste for a fight, but neither were they inclined to back away from the reported opposition. Mays said he hardly anticipated much in the way of neighborly contact but added... that when the kids came around to talk baseball, he would not be turning them away.”
Howden and Gnesdiloff then met with Gaehwiler and his wife. In their mid to late thirties, they apparently had done well as builders, producing and selling about four high-priced houses a year. They planned on selling the Miraloma house in which they were now living and had others on the market, or about to be completed, in the neighborhood. Gaehwiler told Howden that a sale to Mays would cause them grievous financial harm, and he was quite candid in his denunciation of “colored people.” When Howden reminded him that at least one Chinese and one Filipino family already lived in the area, Gaehwiler “drew a sharp distinction between these and the allegedly undesirable Negro,” Howden recalled. “We went at it from every conceivable angle, but found no indication that the couple might reconsider their position.”
Before Howden and Gnesdiloff left, Howden flatly predicted that Willie Mays would not adversely affect sale prices in the neighborhood and gently suggested that Gaehwiler consult with his religious adviser.
That night, Howden was told that the Chronicle would be publishing a story the next day, November 14, on Mays’s inability to buy a house. (The Chronicle was the city’s only daily newspaper with a black reporter.) Howden made one last plea to Gnesdiloff to change his position to give the Giants’ “opening story a happy ending.” It didn’t work.
The front-page article was indeed a bombshell. Gnesdiloff tried to explain why he turned down the asking price for his house. “I’m just a union working man,” he said. “I’d never get another job if I sold this house to that baseball player. I feel sorry for him and, if the neighbors said it was okay, I would do it.”
But the neighbors said it wasn’t okay. Gaehwiler told the newspaper: “I happen to have quite a few pieces of property in that area and I stand to lose a lot if colored people move in.... I certainly wouldn’t like to have a colored family near me.... I told [Gnesdiloff] to use his own conscience, but that he’d get a bad name if he went through with this.”
Howden’s was the voice of outrage: “This shocking rejection of Mr. and Mrs. Mays as neighbors by a handful of Miraloma residents is nothing less than a civic disgrace. Regrettably, it is typical of practices in large portions of the private housing market.”
The politicians tried to control the damage, though they weren’t exactly rushing to Willie’s aid. “I don’t believe this incident typifies the feeling of the overwhelming majority of our people,” Supervisor McCarty said. “I feel confident that there will be a number of offers to sell a home to Willie Mays and his family.” Mayor Christopher didn’t know whose side to be on. “San Francisco is a very understanding city, and it’s not our practice to preclude anyone from living where he wants to, regardless of his race,” he said. “On the other hand, no law requires an owner to dispose of his property.”
Mays conveyed some hurt but also showed his pride and his capacity to forgive. “I’d sure like to live in San Francisco,” he said. “But I didn’t want to make an issue of it. I’ve never been through this kind of stuff before, and I’m not even mad about it now. I figure if a guy has his own problems, he’s to lick them himself, and if neighbors don’t want you, what’s the good of buying? But they’ll talk about a thing like this all over the world, and it sure looks bad for our country.” He said he and Marghuerite might keep their home in Manhattan, “but this is where I’m going to play ball, and I’d sure like to live here too.”
Marghuerite was less conciliatory: “Down in Alabama, where we come from, you know your place, and that’s something, at least. But up here, it’s all a lot of camouflage. They grin in your face and then deceive you.” (Willie, not Marghuerite, was from Alabama, but her point still held.)
Newspaper and radio reporters and television crews descended on the Mayses, who were staying at a friend’s house. By day’s end, they had received several offers of new homes for sale, and Mayor Christopher magnanimously offered his own residence as a temporary domicile should Willie and Marghuerite find themselves without shelter.
Reporters were also calling Gnesdiloff, who finally realized the severity of the firestorm he had ignited. He contacted Howden but still wasn’t certain what to do. He asked if there might be “alternative offers” for the house matching that of Mays. Howden said Gnesdiloff would have a moral obligation to Mays, since his was first, and his broker would have surely submitted another offer had there been one.
The media pressure was too great. Gnesdiloff told Howden to inform Mays that he would accept the bid, and if his broker wouldn’t represent him, he would cancel his contract. Howden tried calling Mays, but the phone lines were jammed. After twenty minutes, he finally got through. Willie and Marghuerite were staying with Herbert Henderson, a dentist, and the house was filled with reporters in their dark suits and ties, bulky cameras, microphones, and bright lights. No offer to sell a two-story house had ever received so much coverage. The developments were reported in the afternoon newspapers and carried on radio and television newscasts throughout the rest of the day.
Then Gnesdiloff appeared to have second thoughts. Shortly after the announcement, he went to speak to Gaehwiler, but Gaehwiler held firm. Gnesdiloff then asked Howden to come to his house, where he was to meet his broker, Peter Morgan. The television cameras were also heading there.
Morgan didn’t show up, but while Gnesdiloff waited with the press corps in his living room, an unexpected visitor did arrive—Martin Gaehwiler, who demanded an urgent, last-ditch conference in private with Gnesdiloff and his wife. The two men started yelling at each other so that some of the exchanges were quoted in the Chronicle.
“Do you realize how much money you’ll lose?” Gaehwiler demanded. “There’s thousands of dollars.”
Gnesdiloff replied, “But just think of what you’re trying to do to San Francisco. It looks bad.”
The men finally emerged. Gnesdiloff tried again to call his broker but failed to reach him, so he telephoned Willie Mays directly. As the television cameras rolled, he said, “Mr. Mays, I want to tell you my decision personally. I am very happy to have you buy my home. The majority of the people of San Francisco want it that way, and I want it too.” To the reporters, he said, “San Francisco is proud to have Willie Mays here, and I will be proud to have him in the house I built.... I’m relieved now that the pressure is over. The people of San Francisco seem to be behind me, and I hope some of the neighbors will be too.”
He was visibly relieved, though his wife was still tense. “She seemed to feel guilty of a wrong against the Miraloma residents,” Howden later said, “and she was worried too about possible business retaliation against her husband.”
The day still wasn’t over. Mays and Gnesdiloff had to sign papers to complete the transaction, and that was to occur back at the Hendersons’ house. Gnesdiloff called Morgan’s office and left word that if the broker did not show up at the Hendersons’ in one hour, he would assume that Morgan did not want his commission.
So the newsmen and cameras returned to Henderson’s house, where Gnesdiloff and Mays renewed their greetings. There was genuine warmth between the two, and they talked easily about furnishings and home building. They discussed what type of woods and finishes would be appropriate for one of the rooms in the new house. Mays signed Gnesdiloff’s teenage daughter’s autograph book. Marghuerite privately told him that she had received a call from a large developer, offering to sell her a home, and she had secured a promise from him to offer Gnesdiloff work should he need it as a result of selling this house to them. Mays’s attorney arrived, the standard forms were filled in, a deposit check was written, and signatures were affixed—all at acceptable angles for the cameras.
Mays smiled wanly. “I’m glad this is over,” he said. “I didn’t want any trouble in the first place. All I wanted was a nice house in this town where I’ll be playing ball. And I don’t think the neighbors will make any trouble either. They’ll calm down now that it’s over.”
Marghuerite retained her edge. “Sure they’ll calm down,” she said. “We’re not planning to have tea and crumpets with them.”
Shortly after everything was signed, Peter Morgan arrived, spoke privately with Gnesdiloff, and returned his brokerage contract. He preferred to forgo his $1,125 commission than do business with a black man.
After the last reporters left, Gnesdiloff said he thought that he and his wife would get away for a few days. Howden, driving home for dinner, heard a radio commentator in Los Angeles say that the Soviet Union would find the first part of this story, the rejection of Mays, quite useful, while ignoring the second part, the favorable conclusion.
In the coming weeks, Gnesdiloff received a couple dozen letters from as far away as Denver, New York, and Miami. Most were from the Bay Area and most were supportive, though a few were filled with racist and anti-Semitic language. Whenever Mays was asked about the incident, he always defended Gnesdiloff as a man who was trying to protect his business and who ultimately did the right thing.
Mayor Christopher said that the outcome “vindicated” San Francisco, which was nonsense. As predicted, the controversy brought scorn to the city and was a reminder of racial inequities outside the South. The Washington Post said in an editorial: “It is shameful that a handful of bigots should have clouded a city’s welcome to the brilliant center fielder of the San Francisco Giants.... Plainly, the North and West can take little pride in this shabby incident, which dramatizes the ambiguous treatment accorded minorities outside the South.” Edward P. Morgan, a commentator on ABC, was more caustic: “It seems that some of the citizens of San Francisco, often called the country’s most sophisticated city, dwell behind picture windows which do not conceal their prejudices. For them, apparently, neighborliness consists of encouraging Willie Mays at home plate but when the Giants’ Negro star moves next door, his welcome is the rude counsel to get farther away than the outfield.”
In fact, the crisis ended favorably only because Mays was a celebrity, and not just any celebrity, but the very cornerstone of San Francisco’s efforts to become an elite city. Almost any other African American would have had no recourse. The incident, far from vindicating San Francisco, lay bare the insidious but standard practice among Realtors, builders, and banks to prevent home buyers of color from entering certain neighborhoods. In that sense, Mays was a catalyst for citywide introspection. The Chronicle editorialized: “The pressures brought to bear upon Gnesdiloff are irrefutable evidence that some intolerance, some racial bigotry, still reside in cosmopolitan, enlightened, understanding San Francisco. The proof may sadden but ought not to surprise us.”
It was also a defining event in Mays’s career, for it placed a clear light on him as an African American. His reluctance to talk about race—or, more specifically, to discuss his experiences with racism—bleached out his black identity. He was always the nonthreatening superstar who was embraced by all and who seemed insulated from racial hostilities. He simply floated above the fray without complaint or concern.
The incident was a reminder that Mays did not live in some postracial nirvana, and his friends always pointed to this experience—even when Mays himself wouldn’t—as evidence that he too suffered the sharp sting of discrimination.
Mays takes pride in how he handled the matter. He could have denounced the builder, decried the city’s racist housing practices, and found another home. But he believes that he and Marghuerite made a contribution by integrating that neighborhood. Asked by reporters at the time if he thought the controversy would help lower barriers for other home buyers, Mays said, “I think it will. I mean, I can say this: I know that the next fellow who wants to buy a home, they will think twice before saying, ‘I can’t sell it to you.’ I will say that, yes.”
Mays soon brought out his five televisions, his raft of trophies, his pool table, and his white Cadillac convertible, and by February the Gray Line’s deluxe No. 1 tour bus would swing through the St. Francis Wood neighborhood, push up the steep roads, and stop, allowing excited tourists to glimpse the newest homeowner on Miraloma Drive.