Willie Mays Homerun

[tellthetruthg]

You see the Stic wasn't closed in back then asked how many HR's he lost to the wind he said 10. 10 thats all no 10 a year. Do the math . 660 + 140 . Base people know his number in another park would be 800

[UncleMikeNJ]

Home field advantage is misleading. Both Ruth and Gehrig hit more homers on the road in their record-setting seasons. Mantle hit only slightly more homers at home (270-266). Wrigley Field is another example: People don't realize that, when the wind blows in, it becomes the best pitchers' park in the NL, which is why the Cubs have been good when they've concentrated on pitching and lousy when they've concentrated on hitting. The Red Sox, too, have been fooled by their park.

[ShareTheMike]

compact swing...

[theontherise]

chills

[remedave]

is that roger maris number 9

[tomitstube]

damn, it almost hit that airplane.

when willie was 17 he played in the negro league world series. the boston braves passed on willie... it might have been mays and aaron in the same outfield. the dodgers passed, said he couldn't hit a curve ball...

[faffaflunkie]

Mays deserved Ruth's record. F "Candlestone" park.

[paulcbarrera]

@lexmas historians!facts blahblah. willie mays would have hit at least 30 homers in the however many years you say he missed in whatever war you say he was drafted to serve in. the point is that, according to you, ruth's home run dominance over his career is what defines him as at least comparable to Mays. by that logic, if mays hits those lost 60 or so homers, he has 720+ career, and then we're not even talking about this. you and yankee fan think ruth is the best; everyone else knows it's mays

[lemaxmas]

@paulcbarrera blah, blah seems to be the best logic you have going for you. You neither read my post clearly nor responded with any clarity. I am a Willie Mays fan, nimrod, not a Yankee fan. Your "logic" about Mays passing Ruth is flawed when you realize that Ruth was a part-time player as a pitcher for the first five years of his career. Mays appeared in almost 500 more games than Ruth and had over 1,800 more plate appearances than Ruth. Your logic like your attitudes are full of it.

[paulcbarrera]

@lemaxmas okay, then you can have ruth as your centerfielder and ill take mays. sounds good to me.

[lemaxmas]

@paulcbarrera hmm, no nimrod, I'll take Mays as my center fielder who is the greatest center fielder of all-time. and Ruth as my right fielder whch was his everyday position; and as my spot starter as he was a HOF caliber pitcher as well. That combo totally unheard of before and after the great Bambino. Once gain your logic defies description-- or as you like to say... "blah, blah, blah."

[JENDALL714]

If not for doing his duty and serving in the military, Mays would be up there in the 700's with Aaron easily, I won't mention that other guy who claims to hold the record.

[lemaxmas]

@JENDALL714 Also remember that Willie lost a lot of homers with the constant winds blowing in from left to right in Candlestick park. I think that cost him a great deal. He was the best.

[brianwells456comcast]

@lemaxmas As a Giant,May`s played in Candlestick from 1958 through 1971.Mays hit 234 homers at HOME(3,852 at bats)during that period and 225 homers on the road(3,944 at bats).It`s very difficult to see how Mays "lost a lot of homers" due to Candlestick when it appears to be somewhat the opposite!

[Coastergeekperson04]

@brianwells456comcast Well, whether you hit 350 feet or 550 feet, it's still a home run. Willie's shots must have been on the higher end of that.

[lemaxmas]

@brianwells456comcast Candlestick Park was deadly to right-handed power hitters. The prevailing winds blowing in from left were constant and a sure home run killer. Mays had to totally change his batting style at home and become an inside out swinger ala Roberto Clemente and hit the ball to the opposite field. This alone robbed Mays of his awesome power to pull the ball to left. Not to mention the times he lost balls in the winds at left, which in 1965 alone were totaled at 17.

[brianwells456comcast]

@lemaxmas Not trying to take anything away from Willie.He was a great slugger.He always had a great stroke to the opposite field.His rookie scouting report makes mention of that talent(as well as all his other gifts).But,those "prevailing winds"of Candlestick Park didn`t follow Mays on the ROAD to rob him of his awesome power to pull to left.Yet Willie managed to hit "only" 225 homers on the road despite being free from having to deal with winds blowing in from left field.

[lemaxmas]

@brianwells456comcast The amount of home runs Mays hit on the road has absolutely nothing to do with what he and every right-handed power hitter had to contend with at Candlestick. There are hitters who have hit a much higher percentage of homers at home than they did on the road like Frank Robinson and Ernie Banks just to name a few. Your counting of Mays road homers and his ability to hit to all fields means little when his and game was clearly restricted by playing in Candlestick.

[brianwells456comcast]

@lemaxmas Like Mays,Orlando Cepeda was also a powerful right-handed hitter with power to all fields.Cepeda was a Giant from 1958-1965.During that time he hit 111 homers at Candlestick(in 1,979 at bats)and hit 112 homers(2,150 at bats)on the road.Mays and Cepeda were NOT restricted as evidenced by the fact that they were MORE likely to hit homers at Candlestick than away.To their credit they adapted to the situation and hit homers to the opposite field.Again,their home run % were HIGHER at home!

[lemaxmas]

@brianwells456comcast LOL, ok. all the major leaguers who felt thst Candlestick was the worst park in baseball are all wrong; including some who had it in their contracts that they would never accept a trade to SF. All the ballplayers who saw right-handed power hitters robbed of homers the Stick are wrong. All the pitchers that took advantage of the winds to let hitters hit long outs are wrong.

[lemaxmas]

Respond to this video... And you keep ignoring the fact that not being able to consistently pull the ball as an option for Mays or Cepada was literally taking a major advantage out of their arsenal .It is much the same as we have now for pitchers who can no longer really fight for the inside part of the plate as they used to be able to. If you understood the game as well as you think you know stats you would get that.

[lemaxmas]

Respond to this video... You ultimately rely on these stats as a reality for what Mays or Cepada might have done at the stick Again, it means nothing. As I already stated there are power hitters with far more homers at home. Mays could have easily hit more homers in any number of ball parks. And he did indeed lose homers at the Stick as Cepeda did as others did. All Willie had to average was about five homers lost a year, five fly balls a year any he would have passed the Babe.

[brabon1]

willie was the greatest player of all time.....period

and had he not been forced to play in places like the polo grounds and the stick, he would own every offensive record

[paulcbarrera]

i dont buy any bs about Babe Ruth or anyone else being the greatest player of all time. everyone needs to drop the "greatest LIVING ballplayer" when referring to Mr. Mays. Willie Mays is THE greatest, living, dead, or otherwise, and always will be. ask babe ruth to steal you a bag, run the bases well, or play a 13-time gold glove centerfield, and he can't do it. Willie did all of those things, AND hit homers, in fact just 54 fewer jacks than Ruth, and took TWO YEARS OFF for WW2 service.

[lemaxmas]

@paulcbarrera It is a tough call. They were both the greatest. Very true Mays was the better baserunner and fielder by far. But Babe was the better hitter for power and average by far. You need to remember too that Babe was a part-time player for five years and lost a lot of homers too. Babe was also one of the best pitchers in the game. No other ballplayer ever achieved the status of HOF pitcher and player. Babe also many times hit more homers than whole teams did. I think they are both tops.

[paulcbarrera]

trust your eyes. centerfield's a difficult defensive position, which mays played immaculately, and in the cavernous polo grounds and windswept candlestick, no less. modern sabermetric research reveals the deep impact that defense has on the result of baseball games: mays' HOF defensive ability is enough to assign a higher value to mays than to ruth, and when one adds in mays' HOF offensive numbers ACROSS THE BOARD, the comparison becomes an exercise in futility. ruth's the product of an era,MAYS

[lemaxmas]

@paulcbarrera "Ruth's the product of an era". No. Ruth literally "created" the era of modern baseball by his own prodigious ability to hit the ball for power and avg.. He was hitting more home runs than whole teams were. That would have been like Mays hitting 150 - 200 home runs a year. I'm not denying Willie's greatness. I saw him play many times. But no player in the game was ever as dominant as an everyday player and pitcher as Ruth. Willie was great but he was not able to do that.

[paulcbarrera]

@lemaxmas you still have not addressed ruth's inability to play gold glove defense at any position, let alone centerfield. i accept ruth's performance as a pitcher and a hitter. they're impressive. no one denies ruth was the best player of his era. but he had a short porch in right (the house that ruth built). mays played in the "dead ball" era and, if not for WW2, would have hit more career HRs than ruth, and we're not even having this discussion. AND he played gold glove CF @ polo & stick

[paulcbarrera]

@lexmas the point is that if ruth were to play today, he would be pitched to differently, he would be handled differently on defense. he couldn't put up the same offensive numbers and make the same contributions that he could in the 20's. RUTH STOLE 17 bags TWICE in his career. outlandish to think ruth could do that in today's game; but i'm confident mays could do the things he did in HIS career in today's game, in ruth's game, in any game. that's why he's the best of all time--transcendence.

[lemaxmas]

@paulcbarrera Sadly like most people you only have the images of the old Ruth trotting around the bases. It is a proven fact by peers and historians that Ruth had excellent speed and was an excellent fielder not only in the outfield, but also at first base and as a pitcher. Your opinions about how Ruth would handle today;'s pitchers vs, Mays is also sadly mere opinion. No basis in fact. I believe that they were both among the greatest. But fact is, no player ever dominated the game like Babe.

[lemaxmas]

@paulcbarrera LOl!! You sure have no grip on the facts. First of all, Mays was in the army for a bit less than two years. And it was over 6 years after WW2. Mays was drafted during Korea. Except for the last five years of his career Ruth was considered an exceptional fielder and baserunner. This was a stated fact by his peers and baseball historians. Tris Speaker, considered to be amongst the greatest center fielders ever stated that Ruth was among the best fielders he ever saw.

[lemaxmas]

@lemaxmas Ruth had excellent range as a fielder and was often among the leaders in Putouts and assists. As far as a short porch in right, Babe did not need that as most of his home runs which have been researched by historians were mammoth shots. Besides you don't want to go there, when Mays played in the PG, left field was a mere 278ft (280 Y.S.), and rightfield was even shorter at 258! Much shorter than the 301 in right at Y.S.

[owg59]

and he did this without using steroids, growth hormone, or any kind of cheating whatsoever. good for him.

[wjb4341]

Man that is a quick bat.

[aufer21]

That has to be old Shea stadium?

[wjb4341]

@aufer21 - Yeah I'm pretty that is Shea when when it was still fairly new. You can even see a jet landing behind the left field wall as Mays rounds 1st base at around 0:25 - that was a trademark of the old Shea .... the landing pattern was right behind the field and players and fans always complained about jet engines noise.

[NYVoice]

This is indeed Shea Stadium. I'd know it even without the camera panning to the outfield.

[googgull]

Wow that home run trot looks so effortless and it's faster than some guys run the bases.

[ralphfoc]

Greatest all-around player of all time.

[MrLuigiFercotti]

Playing in Candlestick probably cost the the guy 50 homeruns easy.

[TRDIGFV]

@MrLuigiFercotti

:) I guess that makes him even better, playing there...

[UncleMikeNJ]

@MrLuigiFercotti Not necessarily. Willie was smart enough to figure out that the wind patterns meant that if he swung the right way, he could hit opposite-field home runs to right field. After all, McCovey was lefthanded, playing most of his home games at Candlestick, and he hit 521 homers.  Willie's opposite-field compensating may not have offset the wind-induced fly outs, but it does testify to his greatness.

[stephenvincent]

looks like Jim McAndrew was the pitcher...circa 1969?

[nycgrneys]

Wednesday, Aug 21,1968...5th inning off of McAndrew..#33 Ron Hunt scores ahead of Mays..#9 is 1B Coach and 1971 Manager of the Year Charlie Fox..JC Martin is Mets catcher..homer came with 2 outs during a 6 run inning,making the score 6-2 SF enroute to a 13-3 win..Retrosheet lists this as a night game,but fan memories at Mets Ultimate Database recall it as a weekday afternoon game..Juan Marichal went the distance and moved to 23-5..McAndrew fell to 0-5.

[rabble000]

around there. it was before 72 the year he came to the mets....

[JacksonPerdue]

loved Willie's pigeon toed trot

[Kirok]

Wasn't this the first hit he got after being traded from San Fran to the New York Mets in late '72? I remember that he stroked a game-winning pinch-hit homer in his first game with the Mets.

[ElTiant]

This was a homerun when he was on San Francisco.

[stephenvincent]

Willie hit game winning homer in his Met debut on Mother's Day 1972...Rusty hit a grandslam in the 1st...nice

[TuVato]

@Kirok his jersey says SAN FRANCISCO...

[rayjr62]

@Kirok He was still a Giant when he hit this home run.

[tellthetruthg]

@Kirok You are very far off the time line. This video is as you can easily see Willie was wearing a Giant Jersey #1 # 2 it was at Candlestick before they added and closed off the out field with more seats. Those were the years Willie and every Giant Player lost multiple HR's because of the wind that blew off the Bay straight back into the stadium. Willie lost 10 a year to that wind by his count = 200 hrs yup believe that; min 150 where would that put his total? Easily the HR King. Add cold 880

[Kirok]

If they play baseball in every solar system in the known universe, Mays would be the greatest player anywhere.

[litojonny]

@Kirok uhh.. no babe ruth is the greatest hitter anyhwere.

[reillo9]

OMG! i have his card! how much is it worth

[gunwing54]

It's probably priceless. No joke.

[sayhey24man]

Greatest Player of all time period......