Athletic icons Pat Summitt and Willie Mays will be featured on stamps to be issued next year by the U.S. Postal Service.Also, unicorns, Halloween monsters and vegetables. The 2027 collection is to spotlight “sports legends, mythical creatures and celebrations.”Summitt coached the University of Tennessee women’s basketball team to eight national titles in her 38 years and the U.S. national team to its first Olympic gold medal in 1984, while raising the profile of the women’s game.The first coach, men’s or women’s, to 1,000 college wins, she was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000. She is known for leveraging Title IX, the federal civil rights law against sex-based discrimination in schools, to fight for equal funding and facilities for female athletes. Mays was the quintessential five-tool player, among baseball’s greatest ever at hitting for average, hitting for power, speed, fielding and throwing.(U.S. Postal Service)(U.S. Postal Service)He spent a year playing for the Birmingham Black Barons in the Negro American League before joining the New York Giants. Over the following 22 seasons, the Say Hey Kid was a 24-time National League all-star (the game was played twice a year from 1959 through 1962), 12-time Gold Glove winner and two-time NL MVP.Mays retired in 1973 with 660 home runs, behind only Babe Ruth and Henry Aaron, and a lifetime batting average of .301. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, the first year he was eligible.His stamp depicts “The Catch,” his over-the-shoulder grab of Cleveland Indian Vic Wertz’s eighth-inning, 420-foot drive to center field at the Polo Grounds in New York to keep Game 1 of the 1954 World Series tied. The Giants went on to win the game and sweep the series.The collection also features unicorns, and “Veggies Forever” — stamps decorated by closeup shots of mushrooms, cabbage and other vegetables. More subjects are to be announced soon, the Postal Service said.
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