October 3, 1965: Willie Mays breaks Giants’ record with 52nd homer, calls it a day

There was no big champagne celebration in the locker room after the game in which Willie Mays blasted his 52nd home run of the 1965 season, the highest season total of his career. For that matter, there was no Mays in the locker room either.

Any plans for celebration died the previous evening when the Los Angeles Dodgers clinched the National League pennant, rendering the final game of the 1965 season largely meaningless for the Giants.

Just over two weeks earlier, on September 16, San Francisco was sitting atop the National League, 4½ games ahead of the Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds. The Giants had just beaten the Houston Astros for their 14th consecutive win, their longest winning streak of the season. But the now-second-place Giants, who’d gone 23-10 in September and October, their best finish since moving to San Francisco,1 could hardly be accused of choking. “I don’t think the kids panicked and collapsed,” offered Giants manager Herman Franks. “That club down south simply wouldn’t stop winning.”2

The Dodgers had won the night of the 16th as well, kicking off a historic run. Of the final 16 games of 1965, Los Angeles won 15, a feat only accomplished previously by the 1960 New York Yankees.3 In that span, opponents scored only 17 runs, were shut out eight times, and had just 15 extra-base hits.4

The Dodgers pitching staff had a combined ERA of 0.85 during the run, led by Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. In going a combined 8-0, Koufax pitched three shutouts and a 3-1 complete game – and earned a save to boot – while Drysdale had two shutouts and surrendered just one earned run in his other two starts for a 0.28 ERA.

Koufax was on the mound, bidding for his NL-leading 26th win, as the Giants gathered around a radio in the locker room after their 3-2 win over the Reds in Candlestick Park. The longer the game wore on without a Milwaukee runner advancing beyond first base, the more Giant players accepted their fate, grabbed their things, and left. “He’s got a two-run lead in the seventh inning?” Franks acquiesced. “I’ll listen to the rest of it in my car.”5

With their place in the standings cemented, Franks planned to give his star players the day off, but was told the league would take issue because the Reds were tied with the Pittsburgh Pirates for third place. “I rested ’em when I was going for a pennant, didn’t I?” Franks argued. “Do you want me to kill them now because somebody else is going for third place?”6

Mays was the player Franks most wanted to rest. The 34-year-old had sprained his left thumb against a fence while trying to nab a Hank Aaron home run in Milwaukee on September 17, but had donned a padded golf glove and played though pain that made it difficult to even grip a bat. With the pennant chase over and Mays’s fourth home run title secured – teammate Willie McCovey was second in the NL with 39, trailing him by 12 – it seemed unnecessary, perhaps even reckless, to start Mays. But the difference between finishing third or fourth in the standings could mean about $500 per player out of the World Series pool. So Franks conceded that he’d start his regulars but wouldn’t play them the full game.

Despite San Francisco’s dashed playoff hopes, a crowd of 39,489 filled the stands at Candlestick Park, many motivated by five new cars that would be raffled off as part of Fan Appreciation Day.7 The Giants started Dick Estelle, a September call-up making his first start of 1965 after five relief appearances; the Reds countered with relief ace Billy McCool, making his second start of his 62 games pitched. Both retired the side in order in the first inning, with Mays capping off the bottom of the inning with a fly ball to center fielder Vada Pinson.

Estelle got himself into some trouble in the second, walking Frank Robinson and Deron Johnson, then surrendering a single to Don Pavletich. Jesus Alou bailed him out, albeit briefly, when Robinson tested the right fielder’s arm and was thrown out at home as the other runners advanced. After intentionally walking Tony Pérez to load the bases, Estelle gave up a sacrifice fly to Leo Cardenas that scored Johnson. The pitcher eventually escaped the inning down only one run despite putting five runners on base.

The Giants got the run back in the bottom of the inning. Jim Ray Hart and Alou led off with back-to-back singles, and Hart later scored on a two-out Hal Lanier triple.

Estelle allowed three runners in the third but maintained the tie. McCool dismissed the Giants in order in the bottom half of the frame, getting the third out on a McCovey fly ball to center field.

In the fourth, the exodus began. Franks sent McCovey out on defense, but after the first out, the manager dispatched Orlando Cepeda to first base to relieve him, allowing McCovey to bask in the outpouring of affection from the Giants faithful. Two more Reds runs scored in the inning, one on an error by San Francisco shortstop Tito Fuentes and a second on a single by Robinson. That ended Estelle’s day as Franks called Bobby Bolin from the bullpen.

The right-hander was looking for some redemption. In his previous start, two day earlier, the Reds had knocked him out after only a third of an inning. Bolin had given up four runs on four hits, including two homers, before being pulled. The Reds went on to win, 17-2.8

Bolin silenced the Cincinnati bats the rest of the way, giving up just one hit while striking out nine in 5⅓ innings and earning the win, but later, in the clubhouse, he lamented, “It was two days late.”9

The Giants responded by tying things up again. Mays led off the fourth by driving McCool’s first pitch deep and into the left-field bleachers. He rounded the bases, now in sole possession of the Giants’ single-season record for home runs, besting the previous mark of 51 set by Johnny Mize in 1947 and matched by himself in 1955. It was another in a succession of home-run milestones for Mays in the previous five weeks.

His home run on August 29 broke Ralph Kiner’s NL record for homers in a month (17) and also pushed Mays past Lou Gehrig for sole possession of fifth place on the career home-run list (494). Two weeks later, in Houston, he became the fifth major leaguer to hit 500 home runs. On September 25, his 50th homer of the season made him the fifth player with multiple 50-home-run seasons and only the second to do it in the National League.

And more were coming. Home run number 52 of the season was also number 505 of Mays’ career, setting him up to surpass Mel Ott as the most prolific home-run hitter in National League history with his seventh home run of 1966. Ten more would overtake Ted Williams, and with another 13 after that, Mays would surpass Jimmie Foxx as the second greatest power hitter in major-league history.

After touching home plate, Mays acknowledged the cheering crowd and stepped back into the dugout. Franks planned to send Mays back into the field, then replace him as he’d done with McCovey, but Mays declined and hit the showers. “They gave me an ovation after I hit the home run and … I didn’t want to milk the fans for applause,” he would later recount.10

Franks wasn’t far behind. Wanting to get on the road for his long drive home to Salt Lake City, he put coaches Charlie Fox and Cookie Lavagetto in charge and left the ballpark.

Mays wasn’t the only player with a milestone to chase. Hart started the day batting .296 and stood to earn a hefty pay raise in 1966 if he could finish the season with a .300 average. He followed Mays’s homer with a double, his 176th hit of the year in his 589th at-bat. He later tied the game, 3-3, scoring on a two-out single by Bob Barton.

One of the Giants called the press box to ask where Hart stood. The Giants statistician let them know he was batting .2988 and would need another hit. Hart responded with a leadoff triple to right in the sixth inning, giving him an average of precisely .300.

The next inning, McCool lost his ability to get anyone out. Two singles, a walk, an error, and another single plated three San Francisco runs, and the Reds turned to reliever Dom Zanni to face Hart, who was a home run shy of the cycle.

Instead, Hart flied out to right, bringing his average back down to .299 (.29949 to be precise). When acting manager Fox learned of the final outcome, he was livid with the press-box staff, suggesting that someone should have called the dugout to let them know Hart’s average would slip below .300 with an out. “If I’d known that, Jimmy,” Fox apologized, “I would have had you bunt.”11

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also accessed Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and Stathead.com.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SFN/SFN196510030.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1965/B10030SFN1965.htm

NOTES

1  Four New York Giants teams had 24 or more wins in their final 33 games: 1916 (27-5), 1921 (24-9), 1928 (25-8), and 1951 (25-8). Sports Reference LLC, https://stathead.com/tiny/wS9TB.

2  Associated Press, “Franks: ‘We Didn’t Collapse,’” Redwood City (California) Tribune, October 4, 1965: 11.

3  Sports Reference LLC, https://stathead.com/tiny/LLH1G.

4  Five of which (three home runs and two doubles) came in an anomalous 7-6 11-inning affair against the Milwaukee Braves on September 22.

5  George Ross, “Champagne in L.A. – Party’s Over in S.F.,” Oakland Tribune, October 3, 1965: 39.

6  Willie Mays and Charles Einstein, Willie Mays: My Life In and Out of Baseball (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1972), 297.

7  Prescott Sullivan, “A Show of Gratitude,” San Francisco Examiner, October 3, 1965: III-1; Bill Ford, “Reds Lose, 6-3, Finish 4th,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 4, 1965: 41; “5 Giant Fans Win New Cars,” Oakland Tribune, October 4, 1965: E43.

8  The next day some Reds players upset the Giants by engaging in a game of touch football during batting practice, a taunt referencing the “football score” they’d managed. “Reds Warm Up with Ball That Befits Score,” Sacramento Bee, October 3, 1965: F1.

9  Ford, “Reds Lose, 6-3, Finish 4th.”

10 Mays and Einstein, Willie Mays: My Life, 297.

11  Associated Press, “Franks: ‘We Didn’t Collapse.’”