Roy S. Johnson: Willie Mays’ son is ‘confident’ his father’s childhood fire in Fairfield home can be restored

This is an opinion column.

It was a delicate step, a tentative step. Step back in time.

Step into the house where his father spent his childhood. For the first time since he was a child.

Michael Mays has already made his way through the Indiana Jones-like thicket that obscures the Fairfield house where young Willie Mays once lived. Without a doubt, a house that has survived at least one fire, squatters and robberies. Abandoned once modest middle class home that probably hasn’t been lived in (not legally) for about ten years.

The 65-year-old son of the greatest baseball player of all time walked down a cluttered passage and three cement steps, then stood for a moment on the porch and peered through what was once a window to the right of the front door, now a burnt hole.

He last visited the house in June, the same month his father died at age 93 (“I thought he would outlive me,” Michael told me. “Now I’ve moved on from… circle decks to the batter’s box.”) two days before Major League Baseball celebrated Mays and other Negro League stars at Rickwood Field. It was America’s oldest stadium where a 17-year-old from Westfield, Alabama, a city that no longer exists, made his professional football debut.

Michael Mays pushed the front door; of course it wasn’t locked. He stepped inside carefully, stepping onto the charred and rotting floor. One step, then two, until he found himself in what had once been the living room. In what was once a home.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I remember.”

As I said, Mays wants to buy a house. It is now owned by the city of Fairfield, which is part of the struggling municipality’s Land Bank. Many city officials weren’t even aware of the abandoned estate’s royal origins until news broke that Ben Yoder of Vestavia Hills had applied to buy the house where the player he idolized in his youth once lived.

That bid (ahem) stalled, and now Mays and Yoder are hand in hand as they try to buy and save the house.

Of course, Mays grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and now lives in Savannah, Georgia. Since his father’s death, he’s gotten closer and closer to Birmingham, and he has a unique vision for the Fairfield house, which is just a few blocks from Willie Mays Park, where the diamond has also seen better days.

He doesn’t want to live in the house; he wants it to improve the lives of young people in Fairfield and the surrounding area.

He sees it as a “club” for the new Willie Mays League, a youth baseball development program for players moving from leagues that play on a 60- or 70-foot diamond to a standard 90-foot diamond.

Clubhouse and much more. “Call it a local youth sports resource center,” he says. “This is where the Mays League will be held, but at the same time you can come here and learn about the football program, the basketball programs. This is a community sports center.”

Mace is now in front. So will Yoder and Reggie Tobor, whose firm will oversee the renovation if the structure can be saved. The ceiling and walls were charred and clearly burnt out in places. But there is hope. “It’s not as bad as we thought,” Tabor says.

Mace looks around, glancing around. “I was a kid in that space,” he says.

– Was this your bedroom? I ask, pointing to the small room on the other side of the door leading from the living room.

“The bedroom,” he says. “I slept on the couch.”

Soot covered everything, including burnt chairs, floors and pots still sitting in the sink of what had once been the kitchen. It covered the pillows, burnt lamps and household remains on the floor. Covered Residues house.

“I’m excited, but it’s a lot,” Mays said. “I’m glad to be here in good company. I’m confident we can get it back to where it was before.”

Mays hopes to officially purchase the home soon. Meanwhile, the trio will soon clean up the ghostly debris surrounding the house, a much-needed first step toward reintroducing it to the surrounding, still-proud neighborhood and elevating it to a status befitting its heritage.

“We crossed our T’s, dotted our I’s and did our due diligence,” says Mays. “Our cleanup day will be the start of the process that everyone wants.”

I was raised by good people who encouraged me to be a good person and surround myself with good people. If I did, they said, good things would happen. I’m a member of the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame, an Edward R. Murrow Award winner, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. My column appears on AL.comand digital editions of The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times and Mobile Press-Register. Tell me what you think about [email protected]and follow me in twitter.com/roysjor on Instagram @roysj.