May 13, 1958: Willie Mays completes torrid stretch against rival Dodgers

Willie Mays batted .309 lifetime against the Dodgers and hit 98 home runs. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

What was wrong with Willie Mays?

Sure, the Say Hey Kid was batting .372 through May 7, but he had just one home run in his first 22 games as a San Francisco Giant. According to one reporter, “A lot of his hits have been cheapies – the seeing-eye kind.”1 Mays hit 35 homers in 1957, the Giants’ final season in New York, and a major-league-high 51 in 1955. A United Press reporter called the center fielder “something of a disappointment in San Francisco because he was not hitting the long ball.”2

Mays picked a good time to start swinging for the fences. The Giants began a four-game set against the Los Angeles Dodgers on May 9, the first two at Seals Stadium and next two at the LA Coliseum. Mays hit two homers and collected five RBIs in the opener, an 11-3 win against the Giants’ bitter rival and the other National League team that left New York City for California after 1957, the Dodgers from the borough of Brooklyn. The San Francisco Examiner reported, “Willie Mays finally broke out with the big one tonight.”3

Mays hit another home run in the second game, and the Giants won, 3-2, behind Johnny Antonelli. After an offday, the teams met in Los Angeles. The Giants won in lopsided fashion, 12-3. Ruben Gomez struck out 10 Dodgers and walked just one in a complete-game effort. Don Drysdale lasted only two innings for LA and gave up three runs and six hits. Mays hit two more home runs, including a grand slam, and once again drove home five. He was now batting .398. “Walloping Willie Mays was at it again tonight,” Walter Judge wrote in the San Francisco Examiner.4

Could the superstar center fielder keep up his hot hitting in the finale? After those three straight wins against LA, San Francisco had a record of 16-9 and was in second place, just a half-game behind the Milwaukee Braves. The Dodgers were struggling with a 9-16 mark and looking up from the National League cellar. “The Dodgers struck rock bottom last night,” Frank Finch of the Los Angeles Times told his readers on May 13. The team hadn’t sunk this low since July 2, 1948, Finch reported.5 “They spent only one day in the dungeon on that doleful date,” Finch continued, “but the way the bedraggled Dodgers are playing now it may be that they will never see daylight again.”6

Giants skipper Bill Rigney sent 19-year-old left-hander Mike McCormick, a native of nearby Pasadena, to the mound. The ballclub signed McCormick in 1956 as a so-called bonus baby out of Mark Keppel High School in Alhambra, California, and he made his big-league debut as a 17-year-old. The Dodgers countered with veteran right-hander Don Newcombe, who was less than two years removed from his 27-win season and Cy Young Award campaign in 1956.

Only 10,507 fans filed into the vast Coliseum on a Tuesday afternoon, almost 20,000 fewer than attended the previous evening’s game and 90,000 or so short of capacity. McCormick and Newcombe struggled from the start. Newcombe surrendered five runs in the top of the first inning. Mays hit a one-out, two-run homer deep into the center-field seats. Jim Davenport, who led off the game with a walk, also scored.

Hank Sauer, the Giants’ next batter, reached on an error by third baseman Dick Gray. Orlando Cepeda, San Francisco’s hard-hitting rookie first baseman, followed with a single. Daryl Spencer tripled into right field, and the road team led 4-0. After Bob Schmidt struck out looking, Danny O’Connell singled home Spencer. McCormick ended the inning by grounding out.

The Dodgers got back three runs in their half of the first. Jim Gilliam, known for his good eye at the plate, began the rally with a walk. McCormick added to his problems by hitting Gino Cimoli with a pitch. After Charlie Neal struck out, Carl Furillo deposited a pitch into the seats. Gil Hodges followed with a base hit that ended McCormick’s afternoon. Rigney brought in right-hander Ramon Monzant, a 25-year-old from Venezuela, who retired Gray and Don Zimmer.

San Francisco scored twice in the second. Don Taussig reached on Gray’s second error of the game, and Mays hit his second homer. Neal knocked a three-run homer for the Dodgers in the bottom half of the inning, narrowing San Francisco’s lead to 7-6.

Hodges tied the game when he hit a homer in the third inning off Al Worthington, San Francisco’s third pitcher. Hodges and Furillo now had four home runs apiece for the season.

The Giants pulled ahead 11-7 in the fourth. Mays led off by tripling into center field off Fred Kipp, who had relieved Newcombe with one out in the third. Sauer walked and Cepeda followed with an RBI single. That hit ended Kipp’s day. LA skipper Walter Alston called on Ed Roebuck, who immediately gave up a three-run homer to Spencer.

Mays led off the San Francisco fifth by singling to right field and stealing second base with Sauer at bat. After the left fielder popped out, Mays was caught trying to steal third, this time with Cepeda at the plate. Cepeda, the son of Puerto Rican baseball legend Pedro “Perucho” Cepeda, promptly launched his ninth homer of the season. Spencer doubled and scored on Schmidt’s two-base hit. The Giants now led 13-7.

The Dodgers launched another rally with Worthington still pitching in the fifth inning. Hodges singled and Gray and Zimmer walked. Joe Pignatano lined out, and Alston sent up Duke Snider to pinch-hit for Roebuck. The fabled Duke of Flatbush, who hit at least 40 homers every year from 1953 to 1957, grounded into a force out, which scored Hodges. The next batter, Gilliam, flied out to center field.

Alston sent in the talented but wild-armed left-hander Sandy Koufax to pitch in the sixth inning. The Brooklyn native was, like McCormick, a bonus baby and trying to learn the game as a major leaguer without benefit of minor-league seasoning.. This was his fourth season with the Dodgers. San Francisco mounted a quick rally off the 22-year-old. After Worthington grounded out, Davenport doubled and Taussig singled. Mays walked to load the bases. Koufax, always prone to giving out free passes, also walked Sauer and the Giants took a 14-8 lead. Cepeda hit into a double play to end the frame.

Spencer greeted Koufax with a home run in the seventh, the shortstop’s second round-tripper of the day. Koufax also gave up a one-out single to O’Connell. Worthington, though, hit into a force out, and Davenport struck out looking. The Giants now led 15-8, and scored their final run in the eighth inning with lefty Danny McDevitt on the mound. Mays hit his second triple of the day and sprinted home on Willie Kirkland’s sacrifice fly.

The Dodgers’ last run came on Neal’s homer off Worthington in the eighth inning. Neither team scored in the ninth with McDevitt still pitching for Los Angeles and Marv Grissom performing those duties for San Francisco. Worthington got the win in this high-scoring 16-9 affair, improving his record to 3-1, and Grissom picked up his fourth save. Kipp took the loss and dropped to 1-3.

San Francisco batters rang up 26 hits. Cepeda, O’Connell, Schmidt, and Spencer had four apiece, and Spencer drove home six runs. Mays had five hits, four RBIs, and four runs scored. The Giants collected 50 total bases, the most in the modern era (post-1900) in the National League.7 Judge wrote, “This was a great day of glory for the Giants.”8 Mays raised his batting average to .427. “I guess I would say it was my biggest day,” he said afterward.9

Over his past four games, Mays was 12-for-17 (.706) with 7 homers, 2 triples, a double, 10 runs scored, and 15 RBIs. He had 38 total bases. About his sudden power surge, Mays said, “I didn’t change anything. I just started to hit.”10 Judge called Mays “baseball’s most exciting player.”11

While Southern California’s new big-league team struggled (“What’s wrong with the Dodgers?” Los Angeles Times columnist Al Wolf wrote after the four-game debacle against the Giants. “It’s a good question – a pertinent question. But there doesn’t seem to be a satisfactory answer – a finger-on-the-spot answer.”12), the ballclub from up north had found a happy home.

Examiner sports editor Curley Grieve wrote, “Hot or cold in the future, up or down the National League ladder, we can point to this period of big league induction as one that hit the highest and finest notes on the baseball scale. … I’m going to say that so far the Giants have played ‘world series baseball.’” As for Mays, Grieve wrote, he “did not dominate at the outset as expected, although performing excellently. And then, suddenly almost, he burst forth like a Roman candle, lighting up the scene with a new brilliance.”13

SOURCES

Besides the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet websites for general player, team, and season data and the box scores for this game.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN195805130.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1958/B05130LAN1958.htm

NOTES

1  Charlie Park, “Movies Cure Problems over Hitting of Mays,” Los Angeles Mirror, May 10, 1958: 10.

2  United Press, “Willie Mays Convinces Giant Fans; Mantle Powers Long Homer,” Salinas Californian, May 10, 1958: 10.

3  Walter Judge, “Mays Clouts 2 Homers in 11-3 Win,” San Francisco Examiner, May 10, 1958: 17.

4  Walter Judge, “Giants Erupt 12-3 – Mays Grand Slam,” San Francisco Examiner, May 13, 1958: 28.

5  The Dodgers were tied for last place on July 2, 1948, .004 percentage points behind the Chicago Cubs.

6  Frank Finch, “29,770 See Giants Tumble Dodgers into Cellar, 12-3,” Los Angeles Times, May 13, 1958: 53.

7  Walter Judge, “Giants Win 16-9, Lead NL,” San Francisco Examiner, May 14, 1958: 36. (Three teams have since surpassed the Giants’ total and one team matched that figure The Expos compiled 58 total bases on July 30, 1978, against the Atlanta Braves. The Cincinnati Reds had 55 on May 19, 1999, against the Colorado Rockies. The New York Mets had 51 total bases on August 24, 2015, against the Philadelphia Phillies, and the Washington Nationals had 50 against the New York Mets on July 31, 2018.)

8  “Giants Win 16-9, Lead NL.”

9  “My Best Day Ever,” San Francisco Examiner, May 14, 1958: 36.

10 “LA Sees Too Much Mays in 16-9 Loss,” Valley Times (San Fernando Valley, California), May 14, 1958: 12.

11 “Giants Win 16-9, Lead NL.”

12 Al Wolf, “Dodgers Wonder What’s Wrong with Dodgers,” Los Angeles Times, May 14, 1958: 65.

13 Curley Grieve, “Most Exciting Month of Sports Entertainment in City’s History,” San Francisco Examiner, May 14, 1958: 39.