Posted May 20, 2011    

•Willie Mays

•Walter O'Malley

•Leo Durocher

•Barry Bonds

•Mae Mays

60 Years Ago Willie Mays Captivated Minneapolis 

When does a city still remember a baseball player that played there in only 35 games──60 years ago? 

When the city is Minneapolis and the ball player is Willie Howard Mays. 

On May 24, 1951 the New York Giants recalled Mays from their Triple A Millers farm team in Minneapolis.  The news broke the hearts of Millers fans and there was such a fuss that Giants owner Horace Stoneham bought a Minneapolis newspaper ad explaining his actions to Minnesotans. 

In his 2008 book Beyond the Sports Huddle, WCCO Radio sports talk host Dave Mona stated the following: “Minneapolis did not like Willie. They loved and adopted him.  Old fans of seventy loved him because he did things they had never seen before. …Kids loved Willie because he came early to games and stayed late to sign autographs.  He kept broken bats to give to the little leaguers who waited faithfully outside the gate after each game.” 

Mays had his 20^th birthday on May 6, 1951 and although he was playing only his second season of minor league baseball, he was causing a sensation in Minneapolis and other towns in the American Association.  Even the casual observer could see the shy center fielder from Alabama was a five-threat player with extraordinary skills to hit for average and power, field and throw, and run the bases.  

Despite his inexperience and a controversy among baseball authorities whether he was ready for the majors, the Giants brought him to New York to help a struggling team with faltering attendance.  If he could even approach his performance in Minneapolis that included a .477 batting average, packing Nicollet Park and drawing rave reviews from the press, then Stoneham was going to be thrilled. 

The Giants had fallen on difficult times and were a family owned franchise that was the No. 3 baseball draw in New York behind the Yankees and Dodgers.  While those teams were winning on the field and drawing fans, Stoneham might have been contemplating moving his club to Minneapolis.  If he wasn’t thinking about it in 1951 when he issued the damage control newspaper ad, he surely was later in the 1950s. 

Back then he was talking with Minneapolis civic officials about bringing his team here and replacing the minor league Millers with the Giants, a glorious National League franchise dating back to the 1800’s.  He knew a Mays homecoming and the arrival of big league baseball in the city would jump-start Giants attendance and line his pockets with ticket revenues and other monies.  

After the new Metropolitan Stadium was opened in 1956, Stoneham had sent the Giants and Mays to an exhibition game against the Millers.  The reaction showed that neither the fans nor media had forgotten their six weeks love affair with Mays.   

But Dodgers' owner Walter O’Malley wanted out of Brooklyn by 1957 when his efforts to secure public backing for a domed stadium failed.  He knew Los Angeles meant riches for him and he told Stoneham to join him on the West Coast.  San Francisco pitched hard for the Giants and it made sense to have two baseball teams on the left coast, not one.  

Mays and the franchise became the San Francisco Giants in 1958, ending the dream that perhaps baseball’s greatest player would come back to Minneapolis.  For generations, Minnesotans could only look back and wonder what if.

 

Mays Wanted to Return to Minneapolis 

Mays, who instantly became as popular in New York as he had been in Minneapolis, had his struggles as a Giants’ rookie during the 1951 season and asked to be sent back to Minnesota, but Giants manager Leo Durocher would have none of that talk.  Willie was his guy and the confidence really paid off. 

Mays hit .274 with 20 home runs and 68 RBI in 121 games, and was voted National League Rookie of the Year.  He provided a spark at the plate, on the bases and in the field for the Giants who had not won a pennant since 1937.  

In August of 1951 it looked like it would be at least one more year before they finished first in the National League.  The Giants were 13.5 games back of the Dodgers in August.  Then came an extraordinary finish to the pennant race that left the two clubs tied for the lead at season’s end.  A three-game playoff would determine who represented the National league in the World Series.  In the deciding third game of the playoffs, Bobby Thomson hit a ninth inning three run home run to rally the Giants to victory and a trip to the World Series.  The “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” is perhaps the most famous moment in baseball history. 

The Giants lost in the World Series to the Yankees, something they did again in 1962.  But the World Series that Mays’ fans usually remember first was in 1954 when he made “The Catch” against the Cleveland Indians. 

The image of Mays' over the shoulder catch off a ball hit by Vic Wertz has been immortalized in baseball history.  The ball looked like it would be way over Mays’ head and Wertz would run for extra bases, sending a couple of runners home and breaking a 2-2 tie. 

Author James S. Hirsch, who wrote a vivid account of Mays’ life in the 2010 book Willie Mays The Life The Legend, described the reaction of the Giants’ manager when the ball was in the air.  “Leo Durocher retained hope, believing that any ball that stayed in the yard, could be caught by Mays.  He just wasn’t certain if the outfield was big enough.” 

It was and “The Catch” became part of the Mays legend when the Giants won game one of the series and went on to become world champions in four games.  But Mays made a lot of spectacular plays and that might not even have been his best.  He once caught a ball bare-handed in the outfield because that was the only angle he could take.  In another game he joined a short list of players who hit four home runs in one game.

 

Stats & Style Defined Mays’ Career 

When his career ended in 1974 Mays had hit 660 home runs and today ranks fourth on the all-time list behind Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth.  He led the National League in home runs four times and in four seasons also was tops in stolen bases.  He was an 11-time Gold Glove winner and played in the All-Star game every season from 1954 through 1973 when he was 42 and finishing up his career with the New York Mets. 

Now think about the career home runs and realize that Mays didn’t play during the 1952 and 1953 seasons because he was in the Army.  Give Mays 80 more home runs and his total is 740, close to Bonds at 762 and Aaron at 755.   Who knows how many home runs Mays might have hit during those two missed seasons? 

But Mays was never defined just by numbers.  He was an entertainer, too.  The “Say Hey Kid" swung from his heels and sometimes drove the ball further than most players ever thought about.  On the bases he took huge leads and might be as likely to steal third base as second.  In the outfield (often using his famed “basket catch”) he not only ran down most balls, but his powerful arm and quick release made hitters sorry they took chances on the bases against him.  And he did much of the above with his hat flying off while showing an exuberance for life seldom seen on ball fields before or since.   

Mays turned 80 on May 6.  You wonder if when he celebrated the birthday with wife Mae Mays he reflected for a moment about those weeks in Minneapolis 60 years ago. 

If so, he’s not the only one who remembers.

 

The "Say Hey Kid"
was more than a player.
He was an entertainer, too.