New I-80 signs honor Willie Mays near Oracle Park

Giants fans driving westbound on Interstate 80 toward Oracle Park now pass a civic marker that turns an ordinary ballpark commute into a public tribute to Willie Mays. New signs for the Willie Mays Highway went up near the Bay Bridge approach this week, and the timing landed on May 6, what would have been Mays’ 95th birthday.

The new designation covers the stretch of I-80 between Postmile 3.836 near Treasure Island and Postmile 5.700 near Oracle Park. Senate Concurrent Resolution 169 created the naming, with state Sen. Bill Dodd of Napa and state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco among its authors. The law also required that the signs be funded by nonstate donations before Caltrans would install them, which is why the Say Hey Foundation paid for the new highway markers.

For San Francisco, the tribute does more than honor a baseball legend. It puts Mays back into the geography of the city he made home in 1958, when the Giants moved west. The approach where the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge enters the city is already one of the most recognizable routes in local sports, carrying thousands of fans toward Oracle Park on game days and through a corridor that also includes the Willie L. Brown Jr. Bridge.

Larry Baer said the stretch of I-80 has carried Giants fans into San Francisco for generations, a fitting frame for a player whose name still anchors the franchise’s identity. Jeff Idelson said Mays helped define San Francisco culture for more than half a century, and Caltrans said it was honored to highlight his story on its highways and recognize a legend who meant so much to generations of Bay Area fans.

Mays’ numbers still explain why his name resonates so broadly: a .301 batting average, 660 home runs, two Most Valuable Player awards, 12 Gold Gloves and 24 All-Star selections. He died on June 18, 2024, at age 93, making the birthday dedication feel both celebratory and memorial. In San Francisco, where sports memory is often written into streets, spans and public spaces, the new signs turn the roadway itself into part of Mays’ legacy.

The Say Hey Foundation said its mission extends beyond remembrance. Working with the Giants, it supports underprivileged youth and advances educational opportunities through the Willie Mays Scholars program for underrepresented students. That gives the highway naming a second layer of meaning: the city is not only marking where Giants fans travel, but also preserving the values attached to the player whose name now greets them on the way to the ballpark.