MAURY WILLS

Maurice Morning Wills told The New York Times in September 1962 that stealing bases was at least as much mental as physical.

“Stealing is a matter of confidence, even conceit,” he began.

“It’s more than getting a good jump, a big lead.

It’s being in the right frame of mind.

I run with the thought that the pitcher will make a perfect throw and the catcher will make a perfect throw and I’ll still beat them.

I don’t have a doubt.”

Maury Wills, the star Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop who revived the art of base-stealing in the 1960s and became one of the most exciting ballplayers of his time, died September 19 at his home in Sedona, AZ.

He was 89.

He could run.

And he could hit, field and throw too.

In his rookie season with the Dodgers–1959–the team won the World Series, defeating the Chicago White Sox, who boasted their own outstanding base-stealer in Luis Aparicio.

Wills stole 50 bags in 1960, his first full season, and went on to win the National League’s base-stealing crown every year through 1965.

It was in 1962 that he set the modern major league record when he stole 104 bases, eclipsing Ty Cobb’s 96 thefts in 1915.

This was transformative.

It shifted baseball away from the power game which defined it since Babe Ruth’s heyday, setting the stage for running.

Lou Brock (118 steals in 1974).

Rickey Henderson (130 in 1982–the current record).

At 5’10” maybe, and 165 pounds, Wills was not an imposing presence.

Nicknamed ‘Mouse’ by his teammates, Wills became a popular figure among Dodger fans in LA during the organization’s first decade there after leaving Brooklyn.

Early in September 1962, while covering the race for California governor between the incumbent, Edmund Brown, and Richard Nixon, the Washington columnist James Reston of the Times wrote this:

“If, after the season, Maury Wills were to run for governor, neither Brown nor Nixon would have a chance.”

His playing career was stellar.

Some of the rest was not.

The Seattle Mariners hired Wills in August 1980.

He became the third Black manager in major league baseball history, following Frank Robinson of the Cleveland Indians and Larry Doby of the White Sox.

But it didn’t go well.

It was brief and unsuccessful, to the tune of a 26–56 record; 317 winning %.

Inheriting a weak team, perhaps he was most vividly remembered in Seattle for being suspended for two games.

Wills was caught ordering–illegally–the team’s groundskeeper to extend the batter’s box by a foot toward the pitching rubber before a game with the Oakland A’s on April 25, 1981.

Another “Mouse,” the feisty Billy Martin, was Oakland’s manager.

He noticed and appealed to the umpiring crew.

Martin believed that Wills was trying to give his hitters a better chance to see and connect against his starting pitcher, Rick Langford, before his deliveries arrived and broke.

Of course, he was correct.

(Not always certainly, but in this instance).

Wills, the NL MVP in ’62 and a 2-time Gold Glove Award winner; 7-time All-Star; and 3-time World Series winner, didn’t need to look at the scoreboard to see if he won or lost.

“I know when I have had a lousy day just by looking down at my uniform,” he told Sports Illustrated in 1965.

“If it isn’t dirty, I haven’t scored two runs, I haven’t done my job.”

In 1962–his MVP season–he also was named the MVP of the All-Star Game, played in his hometown of Washington, D.C.

Wills opted to stay at home with his family instead of at the team hotel.

He showed up at the ballpark wearing a Dodgers shirt and toting a Dodgers bag.

Security was nonplussed, thinking he was too small to be a player.

Wills insisted that he be escorted to the NL clubhouse door where his All-Star teammates could vouch for him.

“So we walk down there and baseball players have a sick sense of humor, because when I stood in front of the door, with my Dodger shirt and duffel bag, and the man opened the door and said, ‘Anybody in here know this boy?’ and they all looked at me and said, ‘Never saw him before,’ he confided to The Washington Post in 2015.

After the game, he left with his MVP trophy.

He showed it to the security guard.

“He still didn’t believe me, he thought maybe I was carrying it for somebody.”

Maury Wills, stolen base king extraordinaire and a wonderful all-around baseball player, deserved better.

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in September 2022.]