The Big Guy

The official address of the San Francisco Giants baseball club is well and formally known as 24 Willie Mays Plaza, San Francisco, California 94107. It's an address and an honorarium chosen, with great public fanfare, by the club itself to honor the greatest of all Giants, if not the greatest all-around baseball player of all time. A fitting and official tribute.

The small inlet off San Francisco Bay leading into the China Basin estuary, roughly bounded by the Third Street bridge, the South Beach harbor, and AT&T Park's right-field wall, is well and informally known as McCovey Cove. No official designation accompanies this name; it was chosen by Giants fans, in more or less spontaneous manner shortly after the park opened, to honor San Francisco's favorite baseball son, the great Willie McCovey, who passed away last week at the age of 80. And that really tells you all you need to know about Willie McCovey and the San Francisco Giants.

"Mac," or "Stretch," or the "Big Dipper" (that one never caught on) was an overnight sensation, and peculiarly and intimately a San Francisco overnight sensation, from the moment he stepped to the plate at Seals Stadium on July 30, 1959, and went 4-for-4 with two triples and two RBI. Yes, San Franciscans knew how great Willie Mays was; they could hardly know otherwise, given the ceaseless New York-based media barrage they'd received as soon as the Giants arrived in the City. They knew, but San Franciscans tend to be a contrarian lot, and provincial, too-- in fact the only major city we've ever visited that's even more provincial than San Francisco is, you guessed it, New York City. Willie McCovey, 21 years old, six feet four inches tall, with those long arms and that instantly memorable and lovely sweeping left-handed swing, was San Francisco's Own, and nobody who ever wore the orange and black generated more affection among the fans.  The venerable Charles McCabe, himself a transplanted New Yorker, recalled the reaction of a City cab driver the day McCovey made his first  splash: "Sure, an' it's about time they brought 'em in an Irishman!" Even to those a little unclear on the concept, Willie Mac was an instant hit.

The photograph above was taken at RFK Stadium in 1969, the night Willie hit two home runs in the All-Star Game on his way to an MVP season: 45 homers, 126 RBI, .320/.453/.656, and 8.1 WAR. All told he played 2,256 games for the San Francisco Giants in his four-decade career from 1959 to 1980, with a short, weird hiatus in San Diego and then in Oakland in between. He led the league in homers three times, in 1963 and 1968 as well as 1969. In the "Year of the Pitcher," 1968, Willie Mac was a one-man opposing force, leading the league in homers, RBI, and OPS. His six-year run from 1965-1970, during which he gradually and quietly took over from Mays as the team's greatest offensive threat-- "I could hardly believe it," he told a reporter in '68, "They walked me, to get to Mays"--  is one of the greatest any player of our lifetime has ever put up. He hit 226 home runs in those six years and averaged 106 RBI; he also scored 531 runs and slugged over .500 each season. Add in his 44-homer total in 1963 and his 29 in 1973 at age 35, one of his several "bounce-back" years, and you get an idea of what it was like to face this guy in those days. The Mays remark above shows becoming modesty; on another occasion, he revealed a more honest evaluation of his own talent. Asked "How would you pitch to you?" he responded, "I'd walk me."

Though opportunities were few, Mac could and did turn it up in the postseason, too. Everyone remembers the rocket line drive that ended the 1962 World Series, but consider that McCovey had already tripled off Ralph Terry that day (and been stranded) and he had homered off Terry in Game Two. Willie started four of the seven games, facing only right-handers. In 1971, after an injury-plagued season in which he missed 57 games, Willie was at his Hall-of_Fame best in the NLCS against Pittsburgh-- two big home runs, 6-for-14 with 6 RBI in 4 games and an OPS of 1.413. Giants lost that series too, of course.

Had Mac not been the Giants' Slugger-Without-Portfolio for three years, there is no telling how many home runs he may have hit. Six hundred is not an unreasonable guess. Those "bounce-back" years were wrapped around seasons-- 1964, 1971, 1972-- in which Willie was plagued by nagging leg, ankle, and foot injuries that got worse, as most do, with age.  He got those because in 1959, his rookie year, the Giants were blessed with one of the greatest-ever concentrations of talent at one position at one time-- Orlando Cepeda, Bill White, and McCovey, all great players, all first basemen, all 25 years old or less. Cepeda was the incumbent, and wildly popular. Mac was the newcomer, and even more popular, and they were back-to-back NL Rookies of the Year, so White became the odd man out, traded to St Louis for pitching. But that still left two men on first base, and ultimately, after a year of unhappy back-and-forth maneuvering, the job went to Cepeda and McCovey became an outfielder. Sort of.

How great is Willie McCovey? Consider that after 61 years he is still the third-greatest left fielder in San Francisco history, behind only a couple of guys named Bonds and Mitchell. His 1963 season, full time in the outfield, ranks with their MVP years. Defensively he was more Mitch than Barry, and he really had no business out there, but with the bat in his hand he was still Mac as only Mac could be. In a part-time role in 1962, platooning in left with Harvey Kuenn and facing mostly right-handers, he hit 20 homers in 229 at-bats, a Barry-Bonds-in-2001 pace, slugging .590 and putting up 2 WAR in what amounted to a third of a season. They had to find a place for him, and they sure tried.

But running around in the outfield, with his odd, tapered build, long slender legs, thin ankles and feet-- a physique born to play first base-- hurt him badly in 1964, and in later years it cost him a lot more. There's no question in our mind it should have been Cepeda in left, not Willie, but Cepeda's obstinate refusal to play anywhere other than first base has been well-documented elsewhere and need not be rehashed here, even though it indirectly cost the team a manager who won 366 games in 4 years.  Deep breath, and onward we go.

So, is the Giants' greatest first baseman the greatest of National League first basemen? Among predecessors, he ranks behind Dan Brouthers, Cap Anson, and Roger Connor; a more recent predecessor, Johnny Mize, is an excellent comp and is very close in National League career WAR. More recently, Albert Pujols and Jeff Bagwell have clearly surpassed him (Pujols is 20 WAR ahead based only on his Cardinals seasons).  He was the greatest when he retired; he may not be the greatest now.

But that retirement, and the three-year career coda that preceded it, is what cemented his legacy as the most beloved of San Francisco Giants. Horace Stoneham, acting, disastrously, as his own GM, had traded McCovey after a strong 1973, for reasons's we'd rather not explore. Willie had two reasonably good seasons with the San Diego Padres, playing in 250 games and looking wildly out of place in those chocolate-cake-with-frosting uniforms. He then sat on the bench for part of a year in Oakland, looking wildly out of place in those green-and gold softball uniforms. But as it turned out, that period of relative rest was just what the doctor ordered.

With nothing to lose (except maybe 88 games again) and everything to gain in terms of goodwill, the 1977 Giants invited 39-year-old McCovey to spring training. He arrived with a smile on his face, a rested and toned body, and a swing that looked years younger. Not only did he make the club, he started at first base. And not only did he start at first base, he was the team's best player in 1977, the only Giant to slug .500, leading the club in total bases, homers, and OBP. A whole generation of new Giants fans, who had only heard about those great players from the '60s, joined the rest of us in marveling over our very own living legend who still had plenty of game after years of obscurity and exile. The Comeback Player of the Year award was a foregone conclusion. "Number 44 on the field, Number One in our hearts," was, too.

It was never that good again, we have to admit, as Mac closed in on his career goal of playing across four decades. He was the untouchable San Francisco Giant and he knew it, and while it would be unfair to say he exploited that situation, he knew his value to the club, its fans, its attendance figures, its very core, extended far beyond the field. His numbers in 1978 and 1979 are not very good, and the team was trying to figure out how to gracefully ease Willie aside and let Mike Ivie take over the full-time job. Platooning was out of the question, of course; first-ballot Hall of Famers, even in their dotage, do not platoon.  He was 42 in 1980 and the front office finally reached an accomodation; Mac would gracefully and publicly retire at mid-season after two series against the Dodgers, home and away. That these plans went grotesquely awry afterward does not mar Willie McCovey's legacy; it was his duty, as it has been for so many others, to spend his final years paying for a badly mismanaged team.

In his last appearance at Candlestick Park on July 3, 1980, batting fourth as always, Mac drove in the game's first run in his first at bat, and the Giants held on to that run to beat Cincinnati, 4-3. He may have very badly wanted a Ted Williams moment when he came up in the seventh, but Doug Bair got him to ground out in his final home at-bat. Three days later, on July 6, Willie McCovey strode to the plate at Dodger Stadium amid a standing ovation from enemy fans who had witnessed some of his greatest moments. We remember still a monster home run in 1966 off what must have been a slightly awed rookie, Don Sutton: "That one's hit forty miles!" chortled Russ Hodges. "Tell it bye-bye, baby!"  Now it was the top of the eighth, tie game, one out, first and third, and another young Dodger, Rick Sutcliffe, on the mound. We all wanted Willie to turn on one and yank it into the Dodger bullpen, Ted Williams after all. Instead he skied it to center field, out where they go to die, but it was a trademark McCovey drive all the same-- full swing, good contact, high and deep, and deep enough to score what turned out to be the winning run.

"Gods do not answer letters," pontificated John Updike after Williams' walk-away-forever home run. Good men like Willie McCovey, though, do answer them, and they sign autographs, listen patiently and pleasantly to overawed fans savoring the moment of a lifetime, wave to the crowd even when they have to lean on crutches or ride in a wheelchair to do so, and they never forget the people that showed them love and affection during good times and bad. Willie McCovey made the good times great and the bad times better, and there has never been a San Francisco Giant who wore the colors with such greatness and class.

Goodbye and Godspeed. Big man. Giant.