Tagged: Willie Mays
Quick game couldn’t slow Scully storytelling, with one day to go
By Jon Weisman
Hardly standing on the ceremony of Vin Scully’s penultimate broadcast, the Dodgers and Giants raced through their game today in 2:15, the Dodgers’ fifth-shortest game this year.
But that didn’t stop Vin from weaving several stories into his call. One began with him commenting on the beauty of the setting at AT&T Park.
Video: Vin Scully wishes Willie Mays a happy 85th
By Jon Weisman
Baseball legend Willie Mays turns 85 today. Mays was always a favorite of Vin Scully, and Scully taped a birthday greeting that is more than just platitudes — it’s a celebration of greatness.
Scully’s praise for Mays is for good reason, and not just for his legendary catches. If you haven’t looked at Mays’ stats recently, or recollected anything beyond his 660 home runs, take a moment to refresh.
Remembering ’65: Tied!
By Jon Weisman
“Breathing defiance in the face of the Giants’ seemingly insurmountable lead,” wrote Frank Finch in the September 24 edition of the Times, “the doughty Dodgers face the Cardinals tonight to open their final homestand of the gruelling, grinding National League campaign.”
Already, the Dodgers had made progress, trimming a 4 1/2-game deficit to two games. But their defiance was matched, and then some, by the Giants, according to UPI.
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Remembering ’65: After tense week for Dodgers, Koufax survives rough All-Star outing
By Jon Weisman
Fifty years ago at the All-Star Game, Willie Mays (not Mike Trout) dominated from the plate, and Sandy Koufax (not Clayton Kershaw) had his struggles in his fifth consecutive All-Star year.
The difference: Koufax sneaked away with the victory.
As John Hall of the Times reported, when Koufax entered the game in the bottom of the sixth with the score tied, 5-5, his first seven pitches missed the strike zone. He needed to strike out Jimmie Hall with two on and two out to escape his only inning of work.
In the top of the seventh, Mays led off with a walk, went to third on a Hank Aaron single and scored the winning run on Ron Santo’s infield hit, all off “Sudden” Sam McDowell. That made Koufax the winning pitcher.
“Sandy looked a little sheepish when he was congratulated,” Hall wrote.
Koufax, however, was proud of one thing at the All-Star Break.
Jackie Robinson explains how the Dodgers missed out on Willie Mays
Jackie Robinson congratulates Willie Mays after the Giants clinched the 1954 National League pennant with a 7-1 victory over the Dodgers on September 20. (American Academy of Achievement)
By Jon Weisman
It’s often been told how the Dodgers let Hall of Fame outfielder Roberto Clemente slip through their grasp, but while it’s no secret, the tale of how Willie Mays could have been a Dodger is less well known. Here’s Jackie Robinson’s version, as written by Frank Finch in the June 6, 1965 edition of the Times:
Jackie Robinson, here to telecast the game for ABC, was telling friends about the time he first was given a “chance” to break the color barrier in baseball. “Sam Jethroe and I worked out with the Boston Red Sox in 1945 while we were with the Kansas City Monarchs. They took our names and phone numbers, but we never heard from them. I signed with Mr. (Branch) Rickey later that year.”
Jackie says the Dodgers blew a chance to land Willie Mays when he was a 16-year-old phenom with the Birmingham Black Barons. “The Dodger players were much impressed with Mays when we played an exhibition game with the Barons,” said Jackie. “The front office in Brooklyn was contracted, but Wid Mathews, Mr. Rickey’s assistant, turned down Willie because Wid said he couldn’t hit a curve ball.”
More is written about Matthews at the SABR Baseball Biography Project. The game against Mays would have taken place shortly after Robinson broke in with the Dodgers in 1947. Mays, of course, broke in with the Giants in 1951.
Below, here’s a snapshot of Mays with Tommy Lasorda while the pair were playing in Cuba.
Approximate translation:
Two new “Scorpions”
Willie Mays, outfielder who has brought the “Almendares” (old Cuban League team that represented the Almendares district of Habana) to replace Williams marching ahead. He appears with another defensive player(?) in the blue jersey, Tom Lasorda, who was left of the payroll of Marianao (another Cuban baseball team that represented the Marianao district in Habana) despite that he has four wins and two losses. His lack of control was the reason for his release from the Marianao team. In 51 2/3 innings, he’s given up 54 walks.
Remembering ’65: Marichal threatens Drysdale, Drysdale blows bubbles
By Jon Weisman
Nearly three months before his fateful encounter with Dodger catcher Johnny Roseboro, Giants righty Juan Marichal of the Giants “declared war on Don Drysdale.”
According to Frank Finch of the Times, the challenge came following a “knockdown” pitch Drysdale allegedly threw at Willie Mays in a series-opening game against San Francisco.
After Mays flied out to end the top of the eighth inning of that April 29 game, Drysdale then led off the bottom of the eighth inning and was plunked by Giants reliever Bobby Bolin, but that didn’t satisfy Marichal.
“For five years I’ve been here (in the NL) I’ve seen too much of this,” said Marichal.
“Drysdale has hit Felipe Alou, Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda. I’m not saying he tried deliberately to hit them, but he has too good control to be so far off the plate.
“Next time, if he’s pitching against me and he comes close — we’ll see what happens. He’ll get it. And real good, too.
Drysdale’s repsonse? Finch wrote that the Dodger righty “promised to plug four Giants for every time Marichal hits him.” But Drysdale also felt that Mays’ style of bailing out confused the issue.
“I don’t say Willie is putting on an act when he goes down, it’s just his way of getting out of the way,” Drysdale told Times columnist Sid Ziff. “John Roseboro, for instance, will stand there and move his chin. But in the same situation, Willie will go down. I’d say, he is the hardest in the world to hit.”
Added Ziff: “I wouldn’t say Drysdale was exactly upset by the threat, but when he blew on his bubble gum, the bubbles came out the size of beach balls.”
For what it’s worth, in 46 innings against the Giants in 1965, Drysdale didn’t hit a single batter with a pitch. And after April 29, the Giants didn’t hit Drysdale either.
In 243 career plate appearances against Drysdale, Mays was hit by two pitches.
The Marichal-Roseboro incident would take place August 22, though the players eventually made peace.
Seasons: Maury Wills’ 1962 — not to be taken away
Photo: Los Angeles Dodgers
By Cary Osborne
This marks the fourth in a series of stories where we look back in depth on some of the greatest individual seasons in Dodger history.
The 1962 National League Most Valuable Player award doesn’t belong to Maury Wills. That’s what Willie Mays tells the former Dodger great when he sees him. The seldom remembered 1971 film called “The Steagle,” which starred Richard Benjamin and the vibrant Cloris Leachman, in her much, much younger pre-“Dancing with the Stars” days, has a scene in which Benjamin argues that Mays should have won it over Wills.
“He hit 49 home runs that year, and the Giants won the pennant. But little Maury got it, though,” Wills says.
The Giants and Dodgers, 30 years ago
By Jon Weisman
In 1984, KTTV Channel 11 took this look at the history of the Dodgers-Giants rivalry. Among the incidents that don’t get as much attention these days are the 1971 brawl that had echoes of the famous Juan Marichal-Johnny Roseboro calamity, with Mays and Marichal once again pivotal figures, and a 1978 outfield collision at Candlestick Park that triggered a bizarre finish.
For what it’s worth, the next batter after that 1971 brawl, Willie Davis, hit a two-run home run.
Here’s a more recent picture of Elaine Perkins, who introduces the video above.
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