Today my final individual look at the four men, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, Henry Aaron and Johnny Bench voted baseball’s greatest living players last week.
The indomitable Willie Mays was the quintessential “5 tool player” baseball scouts dream of discovering. He could hit, hit for power, field *as few others if any), run and throw.
Incredibly, for 12 straight seasons playing for both the New York and San Francisco Giants, Mays scored over 100 runs, and at one point drove in 100 runs or more for 8 straight seasons. He hit over 50 home runs eleven years apart in 1954 and 1965.
Yet statistics tell so little of his greatness. One need only see him play, “a baseball genius” as John Unitas was in football, to see his brilliance.
Willie has said he made better catches, (one off the bat of Bobby Morgan, which has no film record is often cited), but it is Willie Mays’ “over the shoulder” catch in game one of the 1954 World Series vs the Cleveland Indians on a drive off the bat of Vic Wertz, that is immortalized.
Wertz, who had 4 hits in that game was robbed of an extra base hit when Mays raced back to grab his drive with runners on first and second and none out in the top of the eighth inning.
He made a great throw, some say better than the catch, which kept runner Larry Doby from scoring. The Giants eventually won the game on Dusty Rhodes’ pinch home run and went on to sweep the (111-43) Cleveland Indians in four straight games.
The way Willie played and loved the great game of baseball, running the bases as no other, pounding his glove and making his “basket catch,” are all indelible, great memories.
A childhood memory: it was either Jerry Weinberg or Stan Gardner, each of whom an adult at the time and destined to die young, the latter shot to death in front of his son who has the same name as me, “hit” a ball (Spalding, red rubber ball) “off the stoop” (6 steps leading up to the garden apartment in which I lived with my parents) sailing well over my head.
Approximately 10 years old, I raced back and caught the ball over my shoulder. Either Mr. Weinberg or Mr. Gardner, perhaps both, said to my father, who was sitting and watching, my catch was similar to Willie Mays’ catch in the World Series!
If only I could go back and feel that triumphant again!
Appreciating the great fortune that I saw the great Willie Mays play is a good way to start!
Click here to watch the 1954 catch and throw.
Today I continue with thoughts on the four men voted baseball’s greatest living players, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, Henry Aaron and Johnny Bench.
It is said that prayer helps and maybe it did as I prayed Sandy Koufax would pitch well each time he started from (1964-1966), a three season span in which he averaged 24 wins per season.
My favorite player on my then favorite team–the Dodgers– Sandy largely struggled in his first six seasons but was easily the best pitcher since Lefty Grove, who pitched 30 or so years before him, in his last six and certainly 5 seasons.
Then on what was such a sad day in my early life, he was forced to retire from baseball due to an arthritic elbow after the 1966 season.
From (1962-1966), Koufax compiled a (111-34) won/loss record. I do not have to look up nor research that he pitched no hit games in 4 straight seasons (1962-1965), the final one a perfect game.
The perfect game on September 9, 1965 was pitched against a Chicago Cubs team whose lineup included 3 future Hall of Fame players, Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and Ron Santo. Sandy struck out pinch hitter Harvey Kuenn, who was a former batting champion, to end the game.
A truly modest man, who has kept a decidedly low profile since leaving baseball, Sandy pitched shutouts in the fifth and deciding seventh games of the 1965 World Series, a feat matched only by Lew Burdette in 1957.
In 1963 Koufax beat the two time World champion, New York Yankees twice as the Dodgers swept the Fall Classic in four straight games.
Sandy was named World Series MVP but when I interviewed him in 1989, one of the few “Sandy interviews about Sandy,” he modestly pointed out that the Yankees scored but 4 runs in the World Series and three were against him. He credited “John (Podres), Don (Drysdale) and Ron” (Perranoski) for allowing but one run in the other two Dodgers’ victories.
“John, Don and Ron,” it rhymes and it is of a rich poem that weaves through a great time. I am glad a modest great, Sandy Koufax is my baseball hero and tears flowed when I saw him receive a richly deserved honor last week.
Sandy with Andy B, 1989
Here are some random thoughts and comments/notes on a sweltering hot day.
Last night on TCM, “The Essentials” series, aired “The Candidate,” starring Robert Redford. The movie was well done and ahead of its time.
I thought about “The Essentials” series co-host, Sally Field, and her association with one of the movie’s stars, Don Porter.
Field overcame early roles in “The Flying Nun” and “Gidget” to win an Academy Award (“You like me, you really like me”) and become a star.
Porter, who was excellent in “The Candidate” as Robert Redford’s political opponent, played Field’s father on the television show “Gidget.”
Next up on TCM last night was “The Last Hurrah’ and in it Spencer Tracy has loved “Kate” his late wife since he was 6.
In real, not “reel” life, Tracy loved another “Kate,” name of Hepburn and thinking of that, maybe, “the Calla Lilies are blooming,” even in this heat.
My mind floods more than usual and my heart runs over with emotions, recalling the great quarterback Ken Stabler, who died last week at the age of 69.
So many memories, so many great football moments back when I believed football, at least the great competition, was so great.
Ken Stabler, who played primarily with the Oakland Raiders and about whom I once said in my own 18 year old’s football preview “stood back and threw darts,” was a big part of it.
The left handed quarterback Stabler provided great clutch plays indelibly etched in my mind.
1972: before Franco Harris’ “Immaculate Reception” gave the slightly favored Pittsburgh Steelers a (13-7) divisional round win vs the Raiders, “The Snake,” as Stabler was known, went around left end for a 30 yard touchdown that gave Oakland a (7-6) lead very late in the game.
1974: Stabler leads the winning drive against Miami from the Oakland 32, culminating in a touchdown pass to Clarence Davis, the latter making the catch between two Dolphins’ defenders, to dethrone the two time Super Bowl champions in the divisional round of the playoffs.
1976: Most important, since it was in a season the Raiders finally won the Super Bowl, Stabler, despite his gimpy knees, ran left and dove into the end zone from 3 yards out lifting the Raiders over the New England Patriots in the divisional round of the playoffs.
It must require a left turn to get to a “better place,” as Mr. Stabler is there now, many of us richer for the memories he provided.
Continuing my look at the four men, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, Hank Aaron, and Johnny Bench, who were voted baseball’s greatest living players, today I reflect on the great Henry “Hank” Aaron.
I now know or certainly it is my opinion, that Babe Ruth is the greatest baseball player ever, if for no other reason the fact he was a dominant pitcher before becoming an unprecedented slugger.
Yet there was a time I really wanted his mark of 714 home runs broken and when it was done by a favorite and a great named Hank Aaron on April 8, 1974, it was a great moment.
My father saw “The Babe” play and talked of the differences Ruth and later players, like Aaron met in their time in baseball. He knew of Ruth’s greatness yet cheered that Monday night when we were among a national television audience, fortunate to see Aaron hit his historic 715th home run in a game vs the L.A. Dodgers on NBC.
Hank was so much more than that home run and his great statistics which include 755 home runs.
He was an incredible clutch performer.
His home run clinched the 1957 pennant for the Milwaukee Braves and then Mr. Aaron hit .393 with 3 home runs as the Braves won the world Series in 7 games against the vaunted New York Yankees.
Even when his team, the by then Atlanta Braves, lost the 1969 NLCS in 3 straight games to the New York Mets, Aaron stood out homering in each game.
Aaron has been happily married to Billye Williams for 42 plus years and twice each has laughed when I told them combined, they have 1,181 home runs. (Another “Billy Williams” as with Hank born in Alabama, hit 426 in his Hall of Fame career.)
Then I added, as I do here, how much I admire the greatness and class of Henry Aaron.
It was wonderful seeing the four men voted baseball’s greatest living players– Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, Hank Aaron and John Bench–walk out amidst thundering applause at the All Star Game in Cincinnati two nights ago.
In the next few days, I will share some of my thoughts on each of these great players.
Cincinnati was the site and a great Cincinnati Reds’ player Johnny Bench is today’s topic.
I thought of him along the lines of Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Bobby Orr when he started and though it is almost impossible to be as great as those two were in their respective sports of basketball and hockey, Mr. Bench came close and received a great, well deserved honor the other night.
Few if any players delivered in clutch situations the way Bench succeeded in doing.
Al Michaels gets all kind of credit for a “tag line” when the U.S. hockey team upset the Soviet Union’s team in the 1980 Winter Olympics.
His true great call was his play by play as the Reds’ radio broadcaster, when Bench homered off a then great relief pitcher Dave Giusti of the Pittsburgh Pirates, to tie the decisive 5th game of the 1972 NLCS (eventually won in the same inning by the Reds).
Lesser known, but perhaps more important, as the Reds, who lost the 1972 World Series did win it in 1975, was Bench starting the Reds’ winning 2 run rally in game 2 of the great 1975 World Series vs the game Boston Red Sox.
“Cincy” trailed both the World Series and game 2 by one, when Bench doubled to right. The one time seeing Johnny, I recalled that hit to open our conversation and he remarked “how few people remembered such a big hit.”
Back to the 1972 game 5 home run. Bench hit it to right field as he did the 1975 W.S. game two double, the ball sailing over the head of the great, great player Roberto Clemente of the Pirates.
It really does not matter that had Clemente been alive, he died in a plane crash as he was aiding victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua, he and not Bench would have been one of the four players cited two nights ago.
What matters is that he died, how he lived and how precious life is. When that ball went over Clemente’s head, it was the last time the public saw him.
All of this, reasons why it was so special seeing the great living players, Johnny Bench, perhaps baseball’s greatest catcher alive or deceased, being one of them.
Click here for the 1972 NLCS Finnish
The American League that won last night’s All star Game.
For the second straight year, Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim was named the MVP of the All Star Game.
Hence the American League champion will have the home field advantage in the World Series.
Starting in 1985, the team with the home field advantage has won 23 of the 29 World Series contested.
However, last year the San Francisco Giants defeated the Kansas City Royals in the World Series sans the home advantage.
Novak Djokovic continued his ascent on the ladder of all-time tennis greats by defeating Roger Federer in 4 sets in the men’s Wimbledon tennis final two days ago.
Djokovic notched his third Wimbledon crown and second straight, the last two finals’ victories coming against Federer.
Overall, Djokovic has won 12 grand slam tennis events.
I had predicted neither Novak Djokovic nor Serena Williams would win at Wimbledon this year and of course both did.
However, I did say after Djokovic struggled mightily in the round of 16 and Ms. Williams had a scare in the quarterfinal round, that each of these great champions may have met the toughest test and would roll to victory.
Both great champions, Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams did just that. Next they revived a Wimbledon tradition and danced together to the Bee Gees’ “Night Fever.”
As with that “heavenly coffee” of days past, the incredible book “Those Amazin’ Mets from Worse to Verse” by George H. Gregor is “chock full” of information (that is) and as the title suggests, poems.
Mr. Gregor, in very creative and at times heart rendering fashion has written poems, all 8 verses in length, about each of the 53 New York Mets’ baseball seasons from their first one in 1962 through 2014.
Additionally, on the same page as each poem is a list of every Mets’ player for that season.
For example on the 1963 page is “Ed Kranepool, still young, got into some games,” and at the bottom of the page Kranepool, acknowledged in the book as the player with the most games played in Mets’ history in a special records section, is listed among “other hitters.”
Ed is in the “other hitters” category because he was not in a typical 1963 day lineup, a detail Mr. Gregor has included for all 53 seasons.
That is not even close to all, as every one of the 984 players to play for the Mets are cited, with some detail following each one.
There is a leaders’ category, a list of every All Star (on our own we can add Jacob deGrom from this season) and a section on the 1962 Mets from which one can ascertain pitcher Dave Hillman at age 87, is the oldest living Met from that year’s team.
A thorough highlights section is included and the book is dedicated to the great Gil Hodges, who managed the Mets to the 1969 World Series title.
Mr. Gregor feels as I do, that Mr. Hodges should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Mr. Gregor’s book with great verse and unbelievable information is “Hall of Fame stuff” as well.
Click here for info on how to purchase the book.
Serena Williams won her sixth Wimbledon crown by defeating Margine Guburuza (6-4) (6-4) in the women’s final yesterday.
Ms. Williams has won 4 straight tennis grand slam events. With a victory in the upcoming U.S. Open she would achieve the “calendar grand slam”–she already has won the Australian and French opens in addition to winning the Wimbledon title yesterday.
Williams has won 21 Grand Slam Tournaments, only Margaret Court (24) and Steffi Graf (22) have more.
Only the legendary Maureen “Little Mo” Connolly in 1953, Ms. Court in 1970 and Graf in 1988 have achieved the “calendar grand slam” among women tennis players.
Andy B Sports 