Among those of us that are baseball fans, sadness filled the air when we heard that Willie Mays had died. Although my allegiance went first to the Red Sox, it was because of Willie Mays that the baseball team I liked second best became the New York Giants. Each year my Aunt Ruth, who lived in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, would invite me to see Willie and the New York Giants play at the Polo Grounds. Seeing him play baseball for the New York Giants had been one of the greater joys of my childhood. He made some of the most difficult plays look easy. To become a major league ball player is no easy task but it is nothing less than extraordinary to exceed in all aspects of the game. And Mays could do it all from hitting to fielding, along with his speed, always a threat to steal a base.
I can still remember his famous basket catches along with his running the bases and seeing his cap fly off his upon his sliding into second or third base. The way he relished the game made it that more special when he performed, with such great agility, on the baseball diamond. And indeed, I had the excitement of seeing Willie make that most famous of all catches in the World Series against the Cleveland Indians (now called the Guardians) in 1954. That was the year that Cleveland had 111 wins losing only 43 games with a winning percentage of .721. This record, set before the baseball season was lengthened to 162 games, remains the American League’s all-time winning percentage record. That season the Indians easily had won the American League pennant by eight games. Going into the World Series, the Indians had been the clear favorites to beat the New York Giants, the opposing team.
To this day, I remember it well as if it had been etched in my mind. The game took place at the Polo Grounds. It was the opening game of the Series on the afternoon of September 25th. With the score tied at 2-2 in the 8th inning, Leo Durocher, then the manager of the Giants, replaced Sal Maglie, with the left-handed pitcher Don Liddle, to face the lefty-batting Vic Wertz. There were men on first and second base and no out as Liddle got set to deliver the first pitch to the power hitting Wertz. Wertz drove that first pitch to the right of dead center field. At the sound of the crack of the baseball, the camera caught Mays dashing back with his back to home plate. As he ran for the ball, somehow, I was confident that he would make the catch as long as it had not been hit out of the park. Some 425 to 450 feet from the plate Mays caught the ball over his left shoulder.
That catch has been said to have been the greatest catch in baseball. But the heroics did not end there. After catching the ball, Mays turned and whirled firing to second base keeping the Cleveland runner on first base. I strongly believe that that one play sealed the fate of the Indians as the Giants went on to win the Series: 4-0. After all what chance did they have against the Giants when they were playing against a player with superhuman skills.
After the Giants moved to San Francisco from New York, the games were no longer televised on the East Coast so I stopped following the Giants and devoted my baseball enthusiasm to the Red Sox. But I really miss the artistry of Willie Mays catching a ball, running the bases and hitting a home run. And what luck it was to actually see on T.V. that most unbelievable catch Mays made against the Indians in the Series of 1954.
Dr. Bernard F. Natelson 