'Best friends I ever had': Willie Mays' treasured bond with a Jewish family

[Behind the Aegis]

Willie Mays was in the prime of his career in 1963, but his finances were a mess. The Giants’ star outfielder had plunged into debt amid divorce proceedings, and even with more than half of his career home runs under his belt, was staring down bankruptcy.

Then he met Jacob Shemano.

Shemano was a banker whose kid, Gary, was shagging fly balls during warmups that day at Candlestick Park. They connected in the locker room afterward, where Mays asked Shemano to help him smooth out his money problems. Shemano agreed on one condition: He wouldn’t take a dime for his work.

What began with Shemano rescuing Mays from bankruptcy evolved into a close friendship that spanned generations and made Mays an honorary member of sorts not just in the Shemano family, but also in the San Francisco Jewish community. Mays in 1964 told the San Francisco Examiner the Shemanos were “the best friends I’ve ever had in my life.”

“Anything that we did, Willie was here,” Gary Shemano, now 79, recalled by phone Tuesday, hours after 93-year-old Mays died. “He was close to the Jewish community because of my dad.”

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