be?
I checked the website for the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
No Willie Mays! He wasnât in the Hall of Fame anymore!
Frantically, I looked up Willie Mays in The Baseball Encyclopedia . Ah, there he was. . . .
What? Willie Mays only played that one season! Just 1951. That was it . Nothing after that. It was like he vanished off the face of the earth.
Oh no! What happened to Willie Mays?
Something was horribly wrong. I knew that Mays played all through the fifties, sixties, and even into the seventies, when he was over forty years old.
What did I do?
I was frantic now. I searched around online until I found the play-by-play for that final playoff game of 1951 to see what happened. It was all the same into the ninth inning. . . .
Dark singles. Mueller singles. Dark to third. Irvin fouls out. One out. Lockman doubles. 4â2. Runners on second and third. Thomson up. Branca comes in. Ball one.
And thatâs when history changed.
Instead of hitting the Shot Heard Round the World on the second pitch, Thomson took it for ball two. Then he took ball three. Then he took ball four.
It said Thomson walked on four pitches! That loaded the bases and brought Willie Mays to the plate.
Oh man! I told Willie he was going to be in the on-deck circle when the game ended. He must have freaked out when Thomson drew a walk. Willie had told me that he didnât want to come to the plate with the game on the line. And because I told the Dodgers that the Giants were stealing their signs, thatâs exactly what happened.
A single by Willie would have tied up the game. An extra base hit would have won it. Even if Willie had struck out or popped up, it wouldnât have been a disaster because there was only one out when he came to the plate. The next batter would have had a shot to win the game.
Then I read what happened. . . .
The 21-year-old rookie Willie Howard Mays, playing in the game of his life and clearly under tremendous pressure, hit into a weak double play to end the game, and the season.
Oh no!
If Willie didnât play in the major leagues after 1951, that meant the season-ending double play was his last major league at bat. His final swing.
But why didnât he play the next year?
I did a little more digging online. I found a 1951 article in a newspaper from Westfield, Alabama, where Willie Mays was born in 1931. It said that he came home at the end of the season and decided to take a break from baseball. There were a few other articles in the same newspaper. They said that Willie Mays, âformerly a player on the New York Giants,â had taken a job working âin a laundry.â
Oh no. Willie must have been devastated about what happened at the end of the 1951 season. He never returned to baseball. He never became a star. He was a nobody.
And it was my fault.
It got worse.
Local man William Howard Mays passed away on Wednesday at his home in Westfield. A laundry worker for nineteen years, Mays played one season for the New York Giants as a young man.
The obituary was dated 1970. He never even made it to his fortieth birthday.
I started crying and cursing.
This was a disaster ! Willie Mays had rescued me when I was tied up in the equipment closet, and how had I repaid him? I had ruined his life!
âAre you okay, Joey?â my mother asked. She had come upstairs and was standing at my bedroom door.
âI did a terrible thing, Mom. I made a big mistake.â
She came in and put her arm around me.
âOh, whatever it is, Iâm sure it couldnât be that bad,â she told me.
âItâs bad, Mom!â I insisted. âI ruined Willie Maysâs life.â
âShhh, itâs okay, Joey,â my mother said, stroking my forehead. âNobody ever heard of that guy.â
âNobody ever heard of him because I ruined his life!â I told her. âI gotta fix it. I have to make it right.â
A S I RAN UPSTAIRS TO MY ROOM, MY MIND WAS
I checked the website for the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
No Willie Mays! He wasnât in the Hall of Fame anymore!
Frantically, I looked up Willie Mays in The Baseball Encyclopedia . Ah, there he was. . . .
What? Willie Mays only played that one season! Just 1951. That was it . Nothing after that. It was like he vanished off the face of the earth.
Oh no! What happened to Willie Mays?
Something was horribly wrong. I knew that Mays played all through the fifties, sixties, and even into the seventies, when he was over forty years old.
What did I do?
I was frantic now. I searched around online until I found the play-by-play for that final playoff game of 1951 to see what happened. It was all the same into the ninth inning. . . .
Dark singles. Mueller singles. Dark to third. Irvin fouls out. One out. Lockman doubles. 4â2. Runners on second and third. Thomson up. Branca comes in. Ball one.
And thatâs when history changed.
Instead of hitting the Shot Heard Round the World on the second pitch, Thomson took it for ball two. Then he took ball three. Then he took ball four.
It said Thomson walked on four pitches! That loaded the bases and brought Willie Mays to the plate.
Oh man! I told Willie he was going to be in the on-deck circle when the game ended. He must have freaked out when Thomson drew a walk. Willie had told me that he didnât want to come to the plate with the game on the line. And because I told the Dodgers that the Giants were stealing their signs, thatâs exactly what happened.
A single by Willie would have tied up the game. An extra base hit would have won it. Even if Willie had struck out or popped up, it wouldnât have been a disaster because there was only one out when he came to the plate. The next batter would have had a shot to win the game.
Then I read what happened. . . .
The 21-year-old rookie Willie Howard Mays, playing in the game of his life and clearly under tremendous pressure, hit into a weak double play to end the game, and the season.
Oh no!
If Willie didnât play in the major leagues after 1951, that meant the season-ending double play was his last major league at bat. His final swing.
But why didnât he play the next year?
I did a little more digging online. I found a 1951 article in a newspaper from Westfield, Alabama, where Willie Mays was born in 1931. It said that he came home at the end of the season and decided to take a break from baseball. There were a few other articles in the same newspaper. They said that Willie Mays, âformerly a player on the New York Giants,â had taken a job working âin a laundry.â
Oh no. Willie must have been devastated about what happened at the end of the 1951 season. He never returned to baseball. He never became a star. He was a nobody.
And it was my fault.
It got worse.
Local man William Howard Mays passed away on Wednesday at his home in Westfield. A laundry worker for nineteen years, Mays played one season for the New York Giants as a young man.
The obituary was dated 1970. He never even made it to his fortieth birthday.
I started crying and cursing.
This was a disaster ! Willie Mays had rescued me when I was tied up in the equipment closet, and how had I repaid him? I had ruined his life!
âAre you okay, Joey?â my mother asked. She had come upstairs and was standing at my bedroom door.
âI did a terrible thing, Mom. I made a big mistake.â
She came in and put her arm around me.
âOh, whatever it is, Iâm sure it couldnât be that bad,â she told me.
âItâs bad, Mom!â I insisted. âI ruined Willie Maysâs life.â
âShhh, itâs okay, Joey,â my mother said, stroking my forehead. âNobody ever heard of that guy.â
âNobody ever heard of him because I ruined his life!â I told her. âI gotta fix it. I have to make it right.â
A S I RAN UPSTAIRS TO MY ROOM, MY MIND WAS
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