May 27, 1952: Willie Mays leads Giants over Dodgers as Army induction approaches

Willie Mays missed nearly two full seasons due to military service. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

An Alabama Draft board summoned Willie Mays almost immediately after his debut season with the New York Giants in 1951, triggering a conscription process, necessitated by America’s military intervention in Korea, that dragged through the winter and into the early weeks of the 1952 season. With orders finally in hand and his Army swearing-in two days away, Mays flashed the star quality about to be absent from the majors for nearly two seasons, as he connected on a home run and two doubles in the Giants’ 3-0 win over the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field on May 27.

Joining the Giants from the American Association’s Minneapolis Millers five weeks into the 1951 season, Mays – manager Leo Durocher’s starter in center field from day one – sparked New York to an improbable pennant,1 anchored the first all-Black outfield in a formerly segregated major league,2 and received National League Rookie of the Year honors.3 At age 20, his future appeared bright.

But world events slowed his rise. North Korea had invaded South Korea in June 1950, and the United States, spearheading the United Nations’ military response, was inducting young men into its armed forces. America’s conscription laws subjected men aged 18½ through 25 to 24-month service terms.4

On October 12, two days after the Giants’ loss to the New York Yankees in the 1951 World Series, the New York Daily News reported that Mays had been classified “1-A” – “eligible for military service” – by his hometown draft board in Alabama.5 “The day I got home [after the 1951 season] the mail brought a letter to me from the Selective Service Board,” Mays noted in his autobiography. “I was told to report to my draft board … within ten days.”6

Seven months of uncertainty – spanning the offseason and spilling into the 1952 schedule – followed. Mays, who had graduated in the top half of his high-school class, made unwelcome headlines in October for failing a written Army aptitude test.7 He was not accepted for duty until he passed the test in mid-January of 1952.8

The draft board had already met its quota of inductees for February, which pushed Mays’ departure into the spring.9 He requested a hardship deferment, asserting that his baseball income was needed to support four of his siblings,10 but officials denied it on April 10 and set a May 17 induction date.11

Induction was delayed once again to transfer his files to a draft board in New York.12 Finally, on May 21, Mays received orders to report to the Army on May 29.13

Against this backdrop, Mays – who missed a week of spring training in March after what the newspapers called “minor surgery”14 – struggled on the field, batting only .161 in 17 games from April 22 through the first game of a May 16 doubleheader. Durocher dropped Mays from fifth to seventh in the order for several games, then alternated him between fifth and sixth, depending on whether a righty or lefty started against New York. The Giants also were without Mays’ mentor, 1951 NL RBI king Monte Irvin, who had broken his ankle in a spring-training game.15

Still, their bid to repeat as NL champs rolled on. A 4-2 win over the Dodgers at the Polo Grounds on May 26 gave the Giants a 24-8 record and a half-game advantage over Brooklyn for first place in the league.16

The action moved to Ebbets Field on May 27 for the middle game of the crosstown series, expected to be Mays’ next-to-last appearance before he left for the Army. With righty Ben Wade on the mound for Brooklyn, Mays, who had played every inning of every game in center, batted sixth.

New York’s starter, 35-year-old right-hander Sal Maglie, had been integral to the Giants’ early success. He entered with wins in all eight of his starts in 1952 and an 11-decision winning streak dating to September 1951.17 The unblemished stretch included a two-hit shutout of the Dodgers on April 20.18

Wade – in a major-league rotation for the first time at age 29 after wartime Army service and nine seasons in the minors19 – had been on the losing side of Maglie’s April shutout. He fanned three Giants in the first inning of the rematch, working around Whitey Lockman’s bad-hop single off Pee Wee Reese’s chest at short and catching Bobby Thomson and Hank Thompson looking at fastballs on the outside corner for the final two outs.

But Don Mueller opened the second by driving his fifth homer of the season over the scoreboard in right-center, giving the Giants a 1-0 lead.

Mays followed with a drive near the wall in right. Carl Furillo went back and, as Dick Young reported in the New York Daily News, “backed to the scoreboard, reached high, and got his glove on the ball. But at that precise moment, Carl brushed the scoreboard and couldn’t hold the pill.”20 Mays stopped at second with a double.

Alvin Dark hit a liner toward short. Reese, Young observed, “[took] his eye off the ball for a split second size-up of his chances of doubling Mays off second,” and the ball hit off Reese’s glove.21

As Reese retrieved the ball from the edge of the grass, Mays disregarded Durocher’s stop sign at third and headed home. Reese fired to Rube Walker, who tagged Mays out, holding on despite Mays’ knee accidentally striking him in the face.22

Mays did produce a run in the fourth, clubbing a two-out solo homer to right. It was his fourth home run of the season, and the Giants led, 2-0.

In the meantime, Maglie again held the upper hand over Brooklyn. Through four innings, the home team was hitless and no Dodger had reached second base. Several Dodgers, including Jackie Robinson, asked home-plate umpire Dusty Boggess to inspect the ball for illegal substances – a frequent allegation against Maglie23 – but Boggess found nothing improper.

Furillo ended Maglie’s no-hit string by singling to lead off the fifth. One out later, Walker hit a grounder between first and second. Davey Williams ranged far to his left, fielded it, and threw to Maglie covering first for the out.24 Furillo took second, but Maglie fanned Wade to strand him there.

Brooklyn stirred again with two outs in the sixth. Duke Snider walked on a full-count pitch. After a strike, Robinson again made his case to Boggess, who threw the ball out.

Robinson singled on the next pitch. Snider went to third, giving Brooklyn two runners on base for what turned out to be the only time of the game, but Andy Pafko’s popup to Williams ended the inning.

Another potential Dodgers’ rally fizzled in the seventh. After Furillo walked to lead off the inning, Thompson made a leaping catch of Gil Hodges’ fly ball near the stands in left, and Williams turned Walker’s grounder into a double play.

By then, Mays had recorded his third opposite-field extra-base hit of the game, a one-out double to right in the seventh. He advanced no farther than second, but the Giants added an unearned run in the ninth off reliever Johnny Rutherford. Reese committed his second error of the game, as Dark’s grounder went through his legs, allowing Mueller, who had singled and taken second on Mays’ groundout, to score from second.

Robinson doubled to open the ninth, but Maglie retired the next three Dodgers to cap the four-hit shutout and extend his winning streak.25

A day later, Mays went hitless as Durocher’s team completed the three-game sweep.26 Ebbets Field cheered its foe, sending Mays off with what the New York Daily News characterized as “a farewell that was tinged with more affection than any Giant has been accorded in Brooklyn since King Carl Hubbell’s bow out.”27

“The New York Giants won the ball game … but in the process lost the guy who is probably the best young ball player to come up to the majors in the past ten years, Willie Mays,” added the Pittsburgh Courier’s Wendell Smith.28

Mays reported for the Army on May 29, bound for training in New Jersey, then duty at Fort Eustis, Virginia.29

Famed sportswriter Grantland Rice devoted his syndicated column to Mays that week. “No young ballplayer has shown greater promise in recent years,” Rice wrote. “His day isn’t over. He has time enough for baseball when he leaves the Army, around [age] 23.”30

Mays’ 1952 season went into the books with a .236 batting average and four homers in 34 games. Without him, the ’52 Giants lost eight of their next 10 games and fell out of first place to stay. They finished second in the NL, 4½ games behind the Dodgers; they were fifth in 1953.

Mays twice requested hardship release from the Army but was denied both times.31 He remained in uniform until March 1, 1954 – eight months after the armistice ending the Korean War – when he received his honorable discharge and returned to the Giants.32

While playing for a service team at Fort Eustis, he developed what soon became his trademark “basket catch” and hungered for a return to major-league competition.33

“[W]hen I left for the Army, the Giants had been a first-place club,” Mays recalled in his autobiography. “While I was away, they were little more than mediocre. I planned to turn this around right away.”34

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author thanks Gary Belleville for his comments on an earlier version of this article.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play. The author also reviewed game coverage in the Brooklyn Eagle, New York Daily News, and New York Times newspapers.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BRO/BRO195205270.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1952/B05270BRO1952.htm

NOTES

1  When Mays debuted with the Giants on May 25, they were in fifth place, 4½ games behind the Dodgers. They trailed the Dodgers by 13 games on August 11 before winning 37 of their final 44 regular-season games to force a three-game playoff for the pennant. They won the pennant on Bobby Thomson’s dramatic ninth-inning homer in Game Three of the tiebreaker. John Drebinger, “Giants Capture Pennant, Beating Dodgers 5-4 in 9th on Thomson’s Three-Run Homer,” New York Times, October 4, 1951: 1.

2  In Game One of the 1951 World Series, the Giants started Mays in center, Monte Irvin in left, and Hank Thompson in right. American Negro Press, “All-Sepia Outfield May Be Key to Indian Win: Pope Joins Doby, Smith in Outfield,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 21, 1954: 21.

3  “Mays, Mac Win Rookie Awards,” New York Daily News, November 16, 1951: 21C.

4  Harold B. Hinton, “Draft-U.M.T. Bill Signed by Truman,” New York Times, June 20, 1951: 1.

5  Joe Trimble, “Reynolds and Raschi Face Operations Next Week,” New York Daily News, October 12, 1951: C22.

6  Willie Mays with Lou Sahadi, Say Hey: The Autobiography of Willie Mays (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), 99.

7  “Army ‘Releases’ Mays: He Flunks Aptitude Test,” New York Daily News, October 30, 1951: 72. Mays biographer Mary Kay Linge suggests the draft board believed Mays had failed the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) on purpose. Mary Kay Linge, Willie Mays: A Biography (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 2005), 48.

8  “Army Passes Mays; Reports in March,” New York Daily News, January 17, 1952: C20.

9  According to the New York Daily News, an Army public information officer “said that normally Mays would be ordered to report in 21 days but would be delayed because of a full quota from the [local draft] board.” “Army Passes Mays; Reports in March.”

10 Hyman C. Turkin, “Mays May Escape Army Draft,” New York Daily News, April 8, 1952: 60.

11 “Mays No Hardship Case, Joins the Army May 17,” New York Daily News, April 11, 1952: 61. “I … did not qualify for either of the two requirements the Army had established for consideration as a hardship case,” Mays indicated in his autobiography. “Either you had to be a married man with a child, or you had to be living in the home looking after the people you claimed as dependents. That … I was helping my mother and four of my nine stepbrothers and sisters out didn’t count. Nor did the fact that my stepfather was out of a job.” Mays with Sahadi, Say Hey, 100.

12 This delay was reported on the eve of Mays’ expected departure. Newspaper coverage on May 15 still asserted that “Mays reports to the Army following tomorrow’s [May 16] game.” Dana Mozley, “Delay Mays’ Induction Month,” New York Daily News, May 16, 1952: 21C; Associated Press, “21 Players, Including Stan Rojek, Shipped to Minor Leagues,” Buffalo Evening News, May 15, 1952: IV, 52.

13 Jim McCulley, “Diamond Dust – Army Takes Mays May 29,” New York Daily News, May 22, 1952: 94.

14 Jim McCulley, “Indians’ Triple Play Aids Bob; Giants Beaten,” New York Daily News, March 31, 1952: C20.

15 Mays with Sahadi, Say Hey, 100.

16 Jim McCulley, “Giants Hurdle Dodgers, 4-2; Bob Homers Before 40,456,” New York Daily News, May 27, 1952: 72.

17 Jim McCulley, “Maglie Tops Braves 5-3, for 8 in a Row,” New York Daily News, May 24, 1952: 28.

18 Dick Young, “Maglie 2-Hitter Halts Flock: Williams, Thompson HRs Air Giant Ace,” New York Daily News, April 21, 1952: 46.

19 Tommy Holmes, “Wade Must Wait for the Big Day,” Brooklyn Eagle, April 17, 1952: 19.

20 Dick Young, “Sal Blanks Dodgers 3-0, for 9th in Row,” New York Daily News, May 28, 1952: 80.

21 Young, “Sal Blanks Dodgers 3-0, for 9th in Row.”

22 Walker was in the lineup for Roy Campanella, sidelined with a broken thumb. “Diamond Dust – Loes Flock’s Last Resort,” New York Daily News, May 28, 1952: 87.

23 Dana Mozley, “Brooks Charge ‘Spitter’; Just Their Sweat: Sal,” New York Daily News, May 28, 1952: 80.

24 The 24-year-old Williams was new in the Giants’ lineup in 1952, having replaced veteran second baseman Eddie Stanky, who was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in the offseason. “Davey Williams has been the best possible replacement for Ed Stanky, the loss of whom was going to be the ruination during the Winter of the Giants,” the Brooklyn Eagle concluded. Harold C. Burr, “Maglie’s Razor Gives Us Barber’s Itch,” Brooklyn Eagle, May 28, 1952: 17.

25 Maglie’s winning streak ended in his next start, a 5-4 loss to the Cardinals on June 2. He finished 1952 with an 18-8 record and made the NL All-Star team.

26 Dick Young, “Hearn 4-Hits Flock, Giants Sweep, 6-2,” New York Daily News, May 29, 1952: C20.

27 Hall of Famer Hubbell pitched for the Giants from 1928 through 1943. Hyman C. Turkin, “Lip Gives Army-Bound Willie a 5-Star Rating,” New York Daily News, May 29, 1952: C20.

28 Wendell Smith, “Wendell Smith’s Sports Beat,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 7, 1952: 12.

29 “Recruit Mays,” New York Daily News, May 30, 1952: 42; “Everyone Hated to See Willie Go,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 7, 1952: 14.

30 Grantland Rice, “Baseball Will Miss Willie,” Birmingham News, May 28, 1952: 31.

31 Mays first requested a hardship release in January 1953, which the Army denied in March. On April 11, 1953, Mays’ mother, Annie Satterwhite, died during childbirth at age 37. Mays again asked for his release, but the Army declined to release him. Dana Mozley, “Mays May,” New York Daily News, January 13, 1953: C24; Associated Press, “Army Won’t Let Mays Play for Giants in ’53,” New York Daily News, March 17, 1953: 52; Associated Press, “Mays Home for Mother’s Funeral,” New York Daily News, April 16, 1953: 97; Mays with Sahadi, Say Hey, 101.

32 “Mays on the Way,” New York Daily News, March 2, 1954: C20.

33 Willie Mays and John Shea, 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2020), 72-77.

34 Mays with Sahadi, Say Hey, 103. Mays earned NL MVP honors in his 1954 return to the Giants, leading New York to a World Series sweep of the Cleveland Indians.