Look: Pirates Legend Wears Signed Giants Willie Mays Jersey Before Game

A Pittsburgh Pirates fan favorite showed up for Friday’s game wearing a signed jersey from one of baseball’s true legends.

Jun 14, 2024; Denver, Colorado, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen (22) reacts following his solo home run in the sixth inning at Coors Field. / Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

The tributes to San Francisco Giants legend continued to pour in on Friday. This time, it was in Pittsburgh.

With the Pirates hosting the Tampa Bay Rays at PNC Park, players showed up hours early to get prepared for the game. With the celebration of Negro League baseball, and of Mays thanks to Thursday’s Rickwood Field game in Birmingham, Ala., Pirates legend Andrew McCutchen showed his respect for Mays as he walked into the ballpark.

How?

The 37-year-old wore a Giants jersey. But not just any Giants jersey. It was a Mays jersey, with No. 24 on the back — and Mays’ autograph on the front.

Andrew McCutchen pulled up to the game today wearing a signed Willie Mays jersey 🧡 pic.twitter.com/kUboQzibYf

— MLB (@MLB) June 21, 2024

Most baseball fans associate McCutchen with the Pirates, where he’s played 11 of his 16 years in the Majors. But, in early 2018 the Pirates traded him to San Francisco for Kyle Crick, Bryan Reynolds and international bonus slot money.

When he arrived at spring training in Arizona, McCutchen met Mays and got to know him well, even though he only spent two-thirds of the season with San Francisco.

“Any chance I got [to talk to him], I was just in there, man,” said McCutchen in an interview on Tuesday night with MLB.com. “I was just trying to [get] any words of wisdom, any ball talk. Whatever would get to me. I just tried to be around him as much as I could.”

They got to know each other well enough that Mays called him “Pittsburgh” as a nickname.

The Giants traded him to the New York Yankees on Aug. 31 of that season. But their relationship went on.

“You kind of understand in that moment the player he was and how big of a player he was,” McCutchen said. “Not just by his stature necessarily, because he wasn't the biggest guy, but he was a guy who played the game very big.”

McCutchen is back in Pittsburgh for the second straight season and was batting .241/.338/.401 with 10 home runs and 22 RBI going into the Rays series. In a five-year period he was one of the best players in baseball, as he had five All-Star Game appearances, four Silver Sluggers awards, a Gold Glove and the 2013 National League MVP award.

Mays was signed by the Giants while they were still in New York and he started his Major League career in 1952. He spent the vast majority of the career with the Giants before he was traded to the New York Mets in 1972, where he finished his career in 1973.

Mays was a 24-time All-Star, a two-time National League MVP, the NL Rookie of the Year, a 12-time Gold Glove winner, a .302 career hitter with 3,293 hits and 660 home runs. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1979 and his number, 24, is retired by both the Giants and the Mets.