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Willie Mays is only 23, and he is playing only his third season (and first full one) in the major leagues. There are other major leaguers, even centerfielders, who stand above him in the statistics (e.g., Brooklyn's Duke Snider, who is fielding as flawlessly as Mays and is batting .359 to Willie's .331). But with his showman's manner and his in-the-clutch timing, Willie Mays is baseball's sensation of the season. To the scandal of some sentimentalists, he is already being talked of as the equal or even the better of the great Tris Speaker and Joe DiMaggio. He has hit 33 home runs in 89 games—a pace which puts him six games ahead of Babe Ruth's majestic record of 60 homers, and there are some impetuous enough to suggest that Willie is the one to climb that Everest of baseball some day.
Stealing Ball Games. "I don't need to tell you where we are now," said a Giant executive. "And I can't help believing Willie is the reason." Added one of Willie's opponents, Chicago Cubs' Pitcher Hal Jeffcoat: "He's out there all the time, stealing your ball game. He makes the kind of plays that win ball games, and he'll do it every day."
One player does not make a winning team in the intricate, machine-tooled, split-second game that big-league baseball has become. But even Willie Mays' teammates seem to feel that his presence works some special charm that makes the club better in the field and at bat. To support the feeling, they point to the record.
Only three years ago, substantially the same Giant team as today's started the season like bushers. A converted outfielder named Whitey Lockman was learning to play first base. On third, another converted outfielder, Henry Thompson, was booting oftener than a cavalryman's cobbler. Such seasoned pitchers as Sal Maglie and Larry Jansen were giving away runs as if they were CARE packages.
In one dismal stretch the Giants lost 11 in a row. It was a test of fire for loyal followers, and many a diehard, headed for Coogan's Bluff, was heard to mutter lamely that he was going out to the ballpark, only because he needed a sunbath. The lard-encased Manhattan saloonkeeper, Toots Shor, once spoke the agony of all Giant fans in one gloomy flirtation with apostasy. "I been wonderin' lately," he told a friend. "I'm raising my kids to be Giant fans. I don't know whether I'm doing the right thing."
Then the Giants called up Willie Mays, who was hitting a fancy .477 for the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association, the Giants' No. 1 farm team. Willie had already made himself so popular in Minneapolis that the Giants' President Stoneham felt obliged to publish ads in the local Minneapolis newspapers to apologize for taking the young man away. But in his first days as a Giant, 20-year-old Willie was a flop. The rookie got only one lonesome hit in his first 26 times at bat.