“My Sad Heart” (1962) – Willie Mays * Written by Deadric Malone * 45: “My Sad Heart” / “If You Love Me” * Label: Duke
Released the same year Willie Mays’s San Francisco Giants lost a hard-fought seven-game World Series to the New York Yankees, this 45 is almost certainly by a different Willie Mays. The actual singer, though, is difficult to trace. Did he really share the name of the Say Hey Kid or did he use a pseudonym as some sort of sales ruse? In spite of its lack of a strong title hook, the record sounds like something Sonny Til and the Orioles could have done. Writer credits went to Deadric Malone, an acknowledged pseudonym for Houstonian Don Robey, who owned the Duke-Peacock label empire. Eight years before this, the actual baseball Mays really did lend his voice to a 1954 single with the Treniers (“Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)”).