Wealth & Money Quote by Willie Mays

Mays delivers this like a shrug, but it lands as an x-ray of mid-century America: talent isn’t just discovered, it’s funneled. The opening beat - no money for college - isn’t self-pity so much as a blunt reminder that “choice” starts with constraints. For a Black kid in that era, education wasn’t a default ladder; it was a locked door with tuition as the key. That line quietly reframes the sports path not as a dream, but as one of the few viable routes left open.

Then he drops the sharper truth: “they didn’t have black quarterbacks.” Not “it was hard” or “people doubted me,” but a matter-of-fact description of a rigged position. Quarterback is leadership, visibility, the role that gets to be “the face.” By naming that exclusion without dramatizing it, Mays exposes how racism operated as infrastructure, not just attitude. The system didn’t merely under-scout; it pre-decided where Black excellence was allowed to appear.

The basketball aside - “only 5’11” - adds a second filter: the body as résumé. It’s practical, even a little funny, but it underlines how sports sort people into destinies with crude measurements and stereotypes.

“So I just picked baseball” is the kicker: casual language for an enormous life trajectory. He’s not romanticizing fate; he’s showing how greatness can emerge from narrowing corridors. Baseball wasn’t simply what he loved. It was what remained possible - and he turned that limited menu into legend.