Willie Mac: Big D's Worst Nightmare

What I remember first about Willie McCovey was his size 6’4″. It says 198 in his bio, but he looked heavier and probably was towards the end of his career. The second thing I remember is how he OWNED Don Drysdale. At least it seemed that way. I remember him taking Big D deep many a time. McCovey hit 41 career homers against LA. Most of those off of Big D. I couldn’t find an exact count, but in 1963, by June, he had 47 career at-bats against him with 22 hits, four doubles, a triple, and nine homers. Yep, Willie turned into Paul Bunyan against Big D.

Willie Lee McCovey was born in Mobile, Alabama, on January 10th, 1938. His father, Frank, worked for the railroad as a laborer. His wife, Esther, and he had ten children. Willie was the seventh. His dad was quiet, and his mom ran the household. She was also a disciplinarian. His dad worked hard, and the family never went hungry. They went to church every Sunday.

In the 19’40s and 19’50s, Mobile was not an easy place for a black kid to grow up. They either went into gangs or went into sports. McCovey was lucky as most of his friends were into sports. He played first base in softball, baseball was a high-scoring center in basketball, and played end in football. He and his cohorts often dominated other teams.

One of the playground directors was Jesse Thomas. His brother, “Showboat” Thomas, had played in the Negro Leagues. Thomas was a friend of Alex Pompez, a former Negro League owner who scouted for the New York Giants. Thomas acted as kind of a “bird dog” scout, often alerting Pompez to players he should check out. After Thomas recommended McCovey, Pompez followed up and liked what he saw. Another Mobile area scout, Ed Scott, who signed Aaron for the Indianapolis Clowns, was not of the same opinion. McCovey had one position, 1B, and he did not make contact all that often.

McCovey had quit high school when he was a junior in 1954 to go to work and help the family. He was working in a bakery. In December of 1954, he went to Los Angeles for a visit with his older brother Wyatt for the holidays. He liked it so much that he decided to stay to live and work. That might have been the end of it, but his mother wrote and told him Alex Pompez was trying to reach him. The Giants wanted him to attend a tryout camp in Melbourne, Florida. The team sent him a bus ticket, and he headed east.

Joining him in camp, were several dozen other prospective players. Orlando Cepeda and Jose Pagan were among them. ” I was scared to death, and I couldn’t have impressed anybody.” McCovey later said. But Pompez had seen him play and signed him for $175 a month to play Class-D ball at Sandersville in the Georgia State League. The 17-year-old McCovey had little trouble adjusting to the pro game, hitting .305 with 19 HRs, 24 doubles, 15 stolen bases, and 113 RBIs in 107 games.

In 1957, while playing for AA Dallas, he injured his knee and ankle sliding into third base. It cost him several weeks of play. More importantly, he was never a huge threat to steal after that and was considered slow of foot. But the power was still there. At AAA Phoenix, he hit .319 with 14 HRs while battling knee soreness and visiting orthopedists.

His teammates on that Phoenix team included Ernie Broglio, Leon Wagner, Felipe Alou, Tom Haller, and Willie Kirkland. They were good enough to win the PCL title that year. He went to spring training with the Giants in 1959 at age 20. But he had little chance of making the team. The Giants already had two first-baseman on their roster. Bill White, who had a nice rookie season in 1956, but then spent the next two years in the military, and Orlando Cepeda, the 1959 rookie of the year. McCovey wore a steel brace on his knee and saw very little action. He was sent back to AAA to start the year. He literally forced the Giants’ hand, hitting .372 with 29 dingers and 92 RBIs in 95 games.

His first MLB game was July 30th at Seals Stadium against Robin Roberts of the Phillies. He was hitting third between Mays and Cepeda. All he did was go 4-4 with two triples. A very impressive first game. And he kept hitting. He got his first homer off of Rin Kline. He had his first two-homer game against the Braves Bob Buhl. On August 17, he started a 22-game hitting streak. He ended his debut campaign with a .354/13/38 line.

In those days, the Giants had a theme where they acquired a bunch of talent and eventually mismanaged it. This was especially true at first base. They had traded Bill White in March to the Cardinals, who needed a replacement for the aging Stan Musial. They now controlled two Hall of Fame talents, who both played first base. Instead of trading one of them, they decided to keep them both. They moved Cepeda to third base, and that experiment lasted exactly four games. He had two assists and three errors. Then he moved to left field, and he was also uncomfortable there. Both of the players were 22, Cepeda’s friends told him he should demand to play first. “I was young and sensitive. I know I could have done it if I had put my mind to it,” he said much later.

Bill Rigney, the Giant manager at the time, said, ” Cepeda was the better athlete, and we thought he had a better chance of changing positions.” Cepeda was also right-handed, so moving him was easier. McCovey just wanted to play and was willing to do whatever the team wanted. Rigney also had to find playing time for his other outfielders, Willie Kirkland, Felipe, and Matty Alou.

Cepeda played left most of 1960, and McCovey had a not-so-good season, hitting .238 with 13 homers. Rigney was fired after the 1960 season. Al Dark came in and used McCovey in a platoon system. His defense, never a strong suit anyway, suffered. On the other hand, Cepeda was shuffled between 1st and the outfield, and it did not affect him at all; hitting .311 with 46 HRs and 142 RBIs.

The next season, Dark announced that Cepeda would be his full-time 1st baseman, and McCovey became the left fielder. He had never played the outfield in his life. He was platooning with Harvey Kuenn. Well, we all know how the 62-season ended. Not very well for our boys. McCovey homered off of Ralph Terry in game two, helping the Giants win 2-0. In game 7, with Terry again out there, he hit a triple in the 7th but had the biggest at-bat of his career in the 9th. With two out, two on, McCovey came up. Everyone thought they would walk McCovey and pitch to Cepeda, who was nursing a sore knee, They decided to pitch to him instead, and he hit a bullet line drive right into 2nd baseman Bobby Richardson’s glove, and the Yanks had a 1-0 win and the series.

From 1959-1962. McCovey hit .543 against Big D with seven homers. Gradually Drysdale figured him out, but he still finished his career with a .336 BA and 12 HRs against him. Over the next few years, McCovey played left field and some first base. The Giants changed managers again, and in 1964 his father died, and it took an emotional toll on him. He had a bad season hitting .220 with 18 homers. In 1965, Cepeda, who had been nursing a bad knee, showed up to play for the new manager, Herman Franks. The swelling and pain in his knee had become unbearable, and he played only six games in the field. McCovey took over with 39 HRs and a .276 BA. The next year, Cepeda was healthy, and the Giants had two first basemen again. One with bad knees and the other with bum ankles and feet.

Franks kept McCovey at first and moved Cepeda to left. but it soon became clear that this was not going to work. On May 8th, the 28-year-old Cepeda was traded to the Cardinals for LHP Ray Sadecki. First base finally belonged to Willie Mac. Cepeda would eventually succumb to his bad knees, but he had a few good seasons left, including an MVP season in 1967. Neither he nor McCovey would ever play the outfield again.

Willie would hold on to that job for the most part, except when he was injured until 1973; he got into one more post-season series in 1971, when the Giants lost to the We Are Family Pirates. He hit two homers in that series. His friend and outfield mentor, Willie Mays, was traded to the Mets after the 1972 season as the Giants began to unload their aging high-priced players. After the 1973 season, he was the next to go, traded to the Padres for Mike Caldwell. Juan Marichal was dealt in December, sold to the Red Sox.

He had two remarkably similar seasons with the Padres in 1974-1975. Then after a slow start in 1975, he was sold to the A’s. He did not do well there either and was released after the season. In 1977, he returned to the Giants as a free agent. He had a resurgent season in 77, hitting .280 with 28 HRs. But his injuries started taking their toll again, and he slumped to 228. He did manage 12 HRs. In 1979, he did a little better hitting,249 with 15 long balls. But the end was close, and after the 1980 season, he retired; he had hit his 521st and only homer of the year off of Scott Sanderson of the Expos on May 3rd. That tied him with Ted Williams on the all-time list. He was allowed to go with the team on its last road trip to Los Angeles. The crowd at Dodger Stadium showered him with thundering ovations. His last at-bat was a sac fly to win a game. At 42, his career was over.

In his post-baseball life, McCovey stayed close to the Giants and worked with them in many different positions. He was married twice, the first being very brief, and has a daughter, Allison McCovey. He married a second time in 2018. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1986 with 81 percent of the vote. In 1996, he and Duke Snider were charged with tax evasion for not reporting income from autograph appearances at card shows. Willie paid a $5,000 dollar fine. He was pardoned by Barak Obama in 2017. His knees required several surgeries, which eventually left him wheelchair-bound. His health was also not great. He had an infection in 2015 that almost killed him. His career line was .270/521/1555. Willie died on Oct 31, 2018. He had been hospitalized earlier that week with an infection. He was 80 years old. Willie’s long-time friend, Joe Morgan, was at his side when he passed. McCovey always scared me when he came up to the plate against the Dodgers. You always had the feeling something really bad was about to happen.

Future Dodgers Down on the Farm

• OKC was beaten line a Rented Mule 12-1
  • Mike Grove went 3.2 innings and allowed 3 Hits, 1 ER, 22, and 4 Ks. That’s the highlight.
  • Baez, Alvarez, Burrows, and Bruihl were all BP Pitchers.
  • Move on.
• Tulsa beat Midland 3-1
  • Lael Lockhart went five and allowed three hits, 0 ERs, 3 BB, and struck out 7.
  • Kyle Hurt followed with four innings, four hits, and no runs. He did walk one and struck out 9.
  • Both of these pitchers have a nice upside.
• Great Lakes shutout Peoria 2-0
  • Nick Nastrini went six innings, allowed two hits and no runs while walking two and striking out 9. He is going to be a beast! He is a beast!
  • Eddys Leonard was 2-3
  • Jorbit Vivas was 2-2
• Rancho Cucamonga beat Lake Elsinore 12-5
  • Luis Rodriguez was 2-4
  • Nick Biddison was 3-4
  • Kyle Nevin was 1-3 with 2 RBI and 3 BB
  • Taylor Young was 2-5 with 3 RBI
  • Ronan Kopp was roughed up, allowing 3 ER in 3.2 innings while striking out 7

Next: Kansas City and Tony Gonsolin