August 17, 1966: ‘The one that kind of sang itself out of the park’: Mays passes Foxx with 535th career homer

Willie Mays took over second place on the all-time home run list when he passed Jimmie Foxx on August 17, 1966. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

It wasn’t the most important hit of the day for the San Francisco Giants, but it was the most historic.

On August 17, 1966, Willie Mays hit career home run number 535 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, moving past Jimmie Foxx into second place on the all-time list behind only Babe Ruth’s 714. The Giants won the game 4-3 on a pinch-hit, walk-off single by Jesús Alou in the bottom of the ninth.

The 35-year-old Mays connected in the fourth inning off Cardinals starter Ray Washburn, hitting a slider over the right-field wall for a solo home run. The blast cut an early St. Louis lead to 3-1.

“That one kind of sang itself out of the park,” Mays told the San Francisco Examiner.1

Mays had tied Foxx just the previous afternoon, going deep off St. Louis left-hander Al Jackson in the third inning of a 3-1 Giants victory. No other right-handed hitter in American or National League history had hit more home runs to that point.2

San Francisco was also in a closely contested battle for the NL pennant in August 1966, at the time hot on the trail of the first-place Pittsburgh Pirates. The Giants eventually finished 1½ games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers, with the Pirates three games back.

The Cardinals reached Giants ace Juan Marichal for three runs in the first two innings, with Lou Brock leading off the game with a home run to right field. St. Louis added two more runs in the second, the first on three straight singles by Charley Smith, Julian Javier, and Dal Maxvill, the second coming home when Washburn grounded into a double play.

Marichal retired Brock on a fly ball to end the inning but apparently reinjured a sore left ankle at some point during the at-bat. Lindy McDaniel came out of the bullpen for the fourth inning with his team down 3-1.

“My left ankle hurt me every time I followed through on a pitch,” Marichal told reporters after the game. “I couldn’t get the ball down. All the hits off me came on high pitches.”34

McDaniel got through the third and fourth innings without giving up a run, allowing a two-out hit each time. Washburn retired the Giants one-two-three in the bottom of the third to keep his team on top 3-0.

Len Gabrielson led off the Giants’ fourth by grounding out to second base. That brought up Mays, who had struck out on Washburn’s slider in his first-inning plate appearance.

Washburn had no such good fortune this time, as Mays tagged his 3-and-2 offering into the wooden right-field bleachers. A 16-year-old East Oakland resident named Joseph Hustace tracked down the ball and returned it to Mays in exchange for $25 and two autographed baseballs.5

“It was just one of those things. But I figured it was gone when he hit it with the wind blowing to right field the way it was.”6

Mays, whose homer was his 30th of the season, got a standing ovation from the 21,956 in attendance.7 He doffed his cap in appreciation after rounding the bases and before entering the dugout.8

History had been made, but the Giants still had a game to win. San Francisco got back-to-back two-out singles from Jim Ray Hart and Tom Haller later in the inning, but Ollie Brown grounded into a force out to end the threat with St. Louis still on top 3-1.

Meanwhile, McDaniel continued to hang zeroes on the Cardinals. He retired them in order in the fifth, and got out of the sixth by inducing Smith to hit into a 5-4-3 double play.

Mays struck out on a Washburn curveball in the bottom of the sixth, in which the Giants went down one-two-three. Both teams were sent down in order in the seventh, then McDaniel allowed only a two-out Tim McCarver single in a scoreless top of the eighth.

Washburn retired pinch-hitter Jim Davenport to start the eighth, but Bob Burda followed with a pinch-hit single and took second on an error by Brock in left field. Don Mason pinch-ran and came home when Tito Fuentes singled to center field, cutting the Cardinals’ lead to 3-2.

Left-hander Joe Hoerner replaced Washburn and got Cap Peterson to fly out to center for the second out.9 Mays worked a walk to move Fuentes into scoring position, and Willie McCovey followed with a single to center to score Fuentes and tie the game.

Nelson Briles then replaced Hoerner, who had retired just one of the three batters he faced. Briles struck out Hart to end the eighth.

Frank Linzy entered the game to pitch the ninth for San Francisco, with Davenport staying in to play second and Peterson remaining on in left. Linzy got Mike Shannon to fly out to right, then retired Smith and Javier on infield grounders, sending the game into the bottom of the ninth.

Haller singled off Briles to start the Giants’ ninth. After Brown struck out. Davenport delivered what was described as a “perfect hit and run single”10 that send Haller to third.

That brought up Alou,11 who lined a single to right field that scored Haller and put San Francisco ahead. It was the Giants’ fourth consecutive win and fifth in their past six games.

Pittsburgh lost later that night in New York to allow San Francisco to move within a half-game of first. Despite the Giants winning a key game in a pennant race, most of the postgame media attention was on Mays’ home run.

California Governor Pat Brown12 sent a congratulatory telegram to Mays, which read, “My heartiest congratulations on your tremendous achievement today in becoming second only to the great Babe Ruth in number of lifetime homers. We were with you all the way on that three and two pitch off Ray Washburn in the fourth. Keep going. In California we are used to setting records. My best personal regards and hopes that one day you will hit number 715.”13

According to the San Francisco Examiner, an unidentified “well-wisher” in the Giants’ clubhouse told Mays, “The pressure’s off now, Willie. You won’t have to worry anymore now until you hit No. 713.” Mays quickly responded, “You guys are the ones who do the worrying, not me. I never worry.”14

Dick Dietz, then a Giants rookie backup catcher who had just one hit (a single) in 22 at-bats that season, quipped, “What’s all the fuss about? I’m only 535 home runs behind Mays right now. If I get real hot I might catch him.”

Mays laughed and replied, “He’s ahead of me in one department. I got a $5,000 bonus to sign. He (Dietz) got about $85,000.”15

After an offday, Mays hit a two-run shot off Atlanta’s Denny Lemaster on August 19 in an 8-5 Giants loss. He went deep again on August 20 – a solo blast against Tony Cloninger – in a 6-1 Giants win, giving him homers in four straight games.

Mays homered just three times in September and once on October 2, the final day of the regular season. He finished with 37 homers in 1966, and had 542 in his career to that point.

Mays’ final batting line in 1966 was .288/.368/.566, with 29 doubles, 99 runs scored, and 103 RBIs in 629 plate appearances spread across 152 games. He finished third in the National League Most Valuable Player balloting behind Pittsburgh right fielder Roberto Clemente and Los Angeles pitcher Sandy Koufax, and won the 10th of his 12 consecutive Gold Gloves for fielding excellence.16

SOURCES

In addition to the sources mentioned in the notes, the author consulted baseball-reference.com.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN196608170.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1966/B08170SFN1966.htm

NOTES

1  James K. McGee, “It Sang Out of Park – Mays,” San Francisco Examiner, August 18, 1966: 49.

2  Henry Aaron had hit career home run number 431 in Atlanta three days earlier and did not homer again until August 22 in Los Angeles, meaning he was more than 100 behind Mays at the time Mays hit his 535th. Aaron surpassed Mays with his 649th home run on June 10, 1972, in Philadelphia, then overtook Ruth with number 715 on April 8, 1974, in Atlanta. He finished his career in 1976 with a then-record 755.

3  “Marichal Re-Injures Ankle,” San Francisco Examiner, August 18, 1966: 50.

4  Marichal returned to the rotation on August 23 and proceeded to pitch complete games in eight of his final 10 starts that season. The only two in which he didn’t go the distance were when he worked eight innings in a 6-0 loss to the Cubs on September 9 and when he pitched nine in a 6-4, 10-inning victory over the Mets on September 17. He finished the season 25-6 with a 2.23 ERA and 25 complete games in 36 starts.

5  McGee, “It Sang Out of Park – Mays.”

6  Ed Wilks (Associated Press), “Mays’s Bag – 1 Foxx, 9 Birds,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 18, 1966: 14.

7  The home run was Mays’ fourth in his previous six games. The Giants went 5-1 in those games.

8  Charles Doherty photos, San Francisco Examiner, August 18, 1966: 49-50.

9  Washburn pitched 7⅓ innings, allowing three runs on five hits with no walks and five strikeouts. He earned no decision, lowering his ERA to 3.74. Briles took the loss to fall to 4-12.

10 Harry Jupiter, “Don’t Forget McDaniel in Tabbing Giants’ Heroes,” San Francisco Examiner, August 18, 1966: 49.

11 The youngest of three Alou brothers who played together with the Giants in 1963, Jesús was the only one remaining in San Francisco by 1966. Oldest brother Felipe Alou had been traded to Milwaukee in December 1963 in a seven-player deal that brought catcher Del Crandall (among others) to the Giants. Middle brother Matty Alou had been swapped to Pittsburgh for pitcher Joe Gibbon and utilityman Ozzie Virgil Sr. in December 1965.

12 Father of Jerry Brown, California’s governor from 1975 to 1983 and again from 2011 to 2019.

13 Associated Press, “Great! – Pat Wires Mays,” San Francisco Examiner, August 18, 1966: 50.

14 McGee, “It Sang Out of Park – Mays.”

15 Jupiter, “Don’t Forget McDaniel in Tabbing Giants’ Heroes.”

16 Mays did not receive a first-place MVP vote from members of the Baseball Writers Association of America in 1966 after winning the award for the second time the previous season. Clemente got eight of 20 first-place votes, Koufax nine, Philadelphia third baseman Dick Allen (who finished fourth) one and Felipe Alou – who finished fifth in the MVP voting in his first season with the Atlanta Braves – got two.