As a baseball player, Willie Mays was arguably the greatest of all time and the GOAT of baseball, but he also made his mark in another arena as a key California civil rights pioneer.

Mays never wanted to be an activist off the baseball field, but the racism he encountered after moving to San Francisco inspired others to join his cause, and ultimately led the city and state governments to ban housing discrimination.

His role began when Mays arrived in San Francisco from New York as part of the Giants baseball team in late 1957. The city's supposedly enlightened locals welcomed the star outfielder and tried to ban him from white neighborhoods.

Although Mays played it down publicly, his wife, Marguerite Mays, told reporters, “Back home in Alabama, we know where we stand. But here, it's all a sham. They smirk in our faces and they fool us.”

Never mind that Mays was on his way to the Baseball Hall of Fame as the greatest all-around baseball player of all time. None of that mattered: If blacks were allowed to buy homes in the popular neighborhood adjacent to St. Francis Wood, an upscale Sunset District neighborhood, property values ​​there would plummet, or at least that's what his white neighbors openly feared.

“We happen to own some land in the area, and would lose a lot if people of color moved in,” a nearby home builder told reporters.

Yes, that was the case in San Francisco, and virtually all of California, until the 1960s, when laws were passed to ban such discrimination. According to another legendary San Francisco Willie, former mayor and longtime state Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, the change was largely spurred by Mays' indirect help.

I called Brown, 90, after Mays died this week at age 93. Brown, a rare black lawyer in San Francisco in the late 1950s, and Mays became close friends early on.

“Honestly, he was a fun guy. A fun guy,” Brown said.

Brown believes the racism directed at Mays was what inspired the city to pass an ordinance banning housing discrimination.

“It started with Willie Mays,” Brown told me, “and as a result of his rejection, newspapers suddenly became aware of racism in San Francisco.

“San Francisco didn't have the racism that other places did. People were smiling.”

Brown continued: “San Francisco's Fair Housing Act was passed because Mays was denied his housing rights, which made the need for change even more pressing. He was the most dramatic example of how discrimination against people of color was occurring.”

In 1963, with the backing of Governor Pat Brown and Bay Area lawmakers, the state legislature passed a bill banning racial discrimination in the sale and rental of housing. The bill needed all the support it could get and sparked the largest and most bitter political fight I have ever witnessed in Sacramento.

California voters overwhelmingly vote to repeal The law went into effect the following year, but the repeal was ruled unconstitutional by both state courts and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mays didn't personally take part in that fight, but Brown certainly did.

Brown, who had emigrated from Jim Crow East Texas, had become a civil rights activist in San Francisco around the same time as Mays arrived from New York. In fact, when Brown was trying to buy a house in 1961, he was persistently ignored by a real estate agent. He responded by leading a sit-in at the agent's office.

The Mays incident happened after Mr. Mays put his three-bedroom house in a tree-lined, all-white, upscale neighborhood on the market for $37,500. Mr. Mays waited a few days, but the offer was rejected. The house remained on the market for as long as it was, but the baseball star couldn't afford it.

When the San Francisco Chronicle heard about the refusal, they ran a banner on the front page reading, “Willie Mays Rejected from San Francisco House Over Race Issues,” with the story headlined, “Willie Mays Rejected from San Francisco House for Blacks.”

“I never thought it would be this hard to buy a house,” Mays told a television reporter. “When you're looking for a house, you don't care who's going to live next door to you.”

Not like the neurotic white people of that time.

In 1970, Mays recorded his 3,000th career hit with a single to left field at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

(Robert H. Houston/The Associated Press)

San Francisco's mayor at the time, George Christopher, a moderate Republican, offered to let Mays and his wife live temporarily in his home.

Eventually, despite chastisement from neighbors, the homeowner backed down, Mays moved in, and at about the same time, someone threw a brick through his window.

Mays stayed focused on baseball and ultimately made San Francisco proud.

As a junior sports reporter for United Press International, I had the good fortune to attend many Giants games at windy Candlestick Park in the early 1960s.

Mays' stats were astounding: a career .301 batting average, 660 home runs, 3,293 hits, 339 stolen bases, 12 Gold Glove awards in center field and 24 All-Star Game appearances.

In the 1961 All-Star Game at Candlestick that I helped cover, Mays hit a game-tying double in the 10th inning and then Pittsburgh's Roberto Clemente singled to score the winning run as the National League beat the American League, 5-4.

But box scores and statistics only tell part of Mays' greatness.

What I remember most about him is the exhilaration and exuberance with which he played — rushing around first base, always a threat to stretch a single into a double or steal second base anyway — sprinting and flying caps no matter the score.

In his long post-retirement career, Mays has brought a comforting nostalgia for baseball's exciting heyday, before boring analytics and an emphasis on astronomical free agent salaries.

America cannot afford to lose people like this. He brought joy, not hate.

And, although there are no statistics, he helped eradicate housing discrimination.