Imagine Willie Mays and Stan Musial in the same Cardinals lineup. The Cardinals could. They tried to make it happen.
In June 1957, the Cardinals offered the New York Giants a combination of cash and players for Mays, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported.
In the authorized biography, “Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend,” author James S. Hirsch wrote that Giants owner Horace Stoneham “seriously considered the deal but didn’t pull the trigger because of the club’s pending transfer to San Francisco.”
Opportunity knocks
The Cardinals opened the 1957 season with rookie Bobby Gene Smith as their center fielder, but he struggled to hit and, in desperation, the club shifted Ken Boyer from third base to fill the hole in center.
Meanwhile, the Giants were looking to move from New York. In 1956 and 1957, the only major-league team that drew fewer fans than the Giants was the Washington Senators.
As Mays biographer Hirsch noted, “Unlike their money-losing years from 1948 to 1953, the Giants did squeak out profits, but they could not keep pace with their Gotham rivals. Between 1947 and 1956, the Giants earned $405,926; the Dodgers earned $3.5 million, and the Yankees, $3.6 million.”
The Giants, Hirsch added, “made money only because of their increasing media revenue, receiving $600,000 a year for their television rights.”
In May 1957, National League club owners gave permission to the Giants to move from New York to San Francisco and for the Dodgers to transfer from Brooklyn to Los Angeles after the season.
A month later, the Cardinals made their pitch for Mays.
High stakes
Cardinals executive vice president Dick Meyer and general manager Frank Lane had the approval of Cardinals owner Gussie Busch to attempt a deal for Mays.
“Mr. Busch told me that I was a good general manager and that I ought to get Mays,” Lane told the Globe-Democrat. “I told him I’d try.”
Meyer said to the newspaper, “We were really anxious to get Mays … When we first told Lane to see what he could do about getting Mays, we fixed the cash price at $500,000. That apparently wasn’t enough and we authorized Lane to increase the ante.”
Lane said negotiations started with Giants vice president Chub Feeney and then club owner Horace Stoneham got involved.
“We made four offers for Mays, including one totaling $1 million,” Lane told the Globe-Democrat.
That offer was: $750,000 cash, outfielder Wally Moon, one or two other players on the Cardinals roster and several in the minors, the Globe-Democrat reported.
(According to the Federal Reserve inflation calculator, $750,000 in 1957 would be the equivalent of about $8.1 million today.)
Mays, 26, already had sparked the Giants to two National League pennants (1951 and 1954) and a World Series title (1954). In 1957, the Gold Glove center fielder would have another stellar season, leading the league in triples (20), stolen bases (38) and slugging percentage (.626). He slammed 35 home runs and scored 112 runs that season.
What a duo he and Musial would have formed. Musial, 36, won his seventh league batting title in 1957. He hit .351 and Mays was second at .333. Musial also was the 1957 league leader in on-base percentage (.422) and Mays was runner-up (.407). Musial had 29 home runs and 102 RBI for the 1957 Cardinals.
Mays and Musial had a bond. According to Mays’ biographer, the three players Mays followed as a youth in the 1940s were Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams and Musial. When Mays traveled with the Negro League Birmingham Black Barons in 1948, he attended his first big-league game at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis and got to see Musial hit.
On a plane to an All-Star Game in the mid-1950s, several black players were in the rear, playing cards. According to Mays’ biographer, Musial approached them and said, “Deal me in.” That was his way of telling those players they belonged. “That told me how classy he was,” Mays said, “and I never forgot that.”
Wrong time
The Giants’ gave “serious consideration” to the Cardinals’ offer for Mays, the Globe-Democrat reported, before opting to decline. Lane said to the newspaper, “Feeney told me the last time we talked about a Mays deal that it was out of the question. As I recall, Chub told me that if they traded Mays and then moved to San Francisco, the people out there would throw them into the bay.”
Stan Isaacs of Newsday wrote that moving the Giants to San Francisco “wasn’t nearly as shocking” as considering a trade of Mays to the Cardinals.
The San Francisco Examiner noted, “Willie certainly must be a lot of baseball player to be worth that kind of money. Since the offer made by the Cardinals was turned down, it must be assumed Stoneham thinks Willie is worth even more.”
Stoneham told International News Service he “appreciated” the offer. In explaining why he rejected it, Stoneham said, “The money was not important. We’re not broke … What we want … above all else is a winning ballclub. All ballclubs have one special player … and to us it is Willie who is that ballplayer. We can build a team around Willie. Maybe that’s the answer to why we didn’t trade him to the Cardinals or anyone else.”
Then Stoneham, in that 1957 interview with International News Service, added, “Maybe we will sell him about 15 years from now, if somebody has a few ballplayers nearly as good.”
Fifteen years later, in May 1972, the Giants dealt Mays, 41, to the Mets for pitcher Charlie Williams and $50,000.
I’ve lost count of all the things that I have learned on Retrosimba. And this certainly is another amazing piece of history that I was previously unaware of. You have to say that the Cardinals offer was indeed a good one. The Giants though, made the right decision. Willie Mays was already the face of the franchise. And with the move to San Francisco, he would only become more valuable. I want you to know Mark that due to the fact that you had already told your readers about your intentions of paying homage to Willie Mays, I’ve spent the last couple of days looking at highlights. But especially looking more in detail at his career numbers. And all I can say is that today’s over emphasis on analytics, launch angle, exit velocity, etc. Has only ruined what was once a marvelous game. Yes, Willie Mays hit 660 homeruns but he also had a strikeout rate of only 12%. Just to put things in perspective, in today’s game a strikeout rate from 20 to 22% is considered average and acceptable. Willie Mays also ended his career with a batting average of .308 with risp. If the bases were loaded, you would also want Willie Mays at the plate. A batting average of .311 and all done the old fashioned way. Just make contact.
Thanks for your astute, comments, Phillip, and for the homework you did on Willie Mays. I agree with you. In 1955, when he slugged 51 home runs, Mays struck out a mere 60 times. In 1965, when he hit 52 homers, Mays fanned only 71 times. It shows that those who say today’s astronomical strikeout totals are justifiable in exchange for home run power are uttering sheer nonsense. Today’s players make no effort to hit for both power and with plate discipline, because it requires too much effort and skill.
I enjoyed this Mark, not only the what if Mays and Musial played together aspect, but the part you included about Musial asking to play in that card game on the back of the plane with his fellow all-stars. who were all black. Adds to his excellent legacy.
This is just speculation, but in that the Cardinals weren’t in the playoffs from that year -1957 when there were discussions of obtaining Mays and remained out of the playoffs until 1963, I figure they mighta been in a few more World Series if they had gotten Mays.
Thanks, Steve. The impact of Willie Mays joining the Cardinals would have been especially interesting to the 1957 Milwaukee Braves. Without Mays, the Cardinals finished in second place in the National League at 87-67, 8 games behind the champion Braves. If Mays had joined the Cardinals in June 1957, they might have overtaken the Braves, who went on to win the World Series championship that year. Regardless, a Mays-Musial-Boyer combination would have been fun to watch compete against an Aaron-Mathews-Covington combination for the Braves in the late 1950s.
After being unable to acquire Mays, the Cardinals got Curt Flood from the Reds after the 1957 season. While lacking Mays’ power, Flood became an outstanding center fielder and contact hitter who helped the 1960s Cardinals win three National League pennants and two World Series titles, often edging out Mays and the Giants for first place.
Very interesting. I have stood in front of that Willie Mays statue many times and I’m sure it wouldn’t exist in this alternate universe. Interesting that TV money meant everything to owners back then as well. They didn’t have “baseball welfare” which pretty much ruined the game and caught the attention of grifters which made the game top heavy and non-competitive.
Speaking of television, here’s an anecdote I thought you might enjoy from the authorized biography “Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend” by James S. Hirsch:
“In 1965, Willie Mays was a contestant on The Dating Game. An actress, Judy Pace, questioned three bachelors hidden behind a screen and chose Willie Mays. The date was supposed to be in Ankara, Turkey, but after the show Mays said he didn’t want to go to Turkey, so instead they went, properly chaperoned, to Nassau, in the Bahamas. Not much romance. Mays spent most of the time on the golf course and visiting his former teammate, Andre Rodgers. Asked if she was disappointed, Pace said, ‘Not really. I love shopping and playing on the beach, and he did take me out to dinner.’ ”
One more note: Curt Flood viewed the show and became so smitten with Pace that he spent almost a year trying to meet her. They eventually married.
What a great story…I can respect a man who knows what he wants and Flood bagged the girl.
The “what ifs” of trades in sports is always fascinating for me to ponder…those rumored deals that were in the works but quite never got made. Always fun to ponder how history would have played out if some great athletes had gotten to line up along side others.
So true, Bruce, especially when wheeler, dealer Frank Lane was involved.
In 1956, after trading Red Schoendienst to the Giants, Lane wanted to deal Stan Musial to the Phillies for Robin Roberts, but Gussie Busch stepped in and said no. In his autobiography, Musial said Lane “was in the process of completing the deal” before Busch phoned and told him to cease.
In 1957, Lane initiated talks with the Phillies about swapping Ken Boyer for Richie Ashburn. After Lane left the Cardinals for the GM job with Cleveland, the Phillies contacted his replacement, Bing Devine, in December 1957 and offered Ashburn and Harvey Haddix for Boyer, but Devine said no, according to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
After the Giants turned down the bid for Mays, Lane offered the Cubs $500,000 for Ernie Banks but the proposal was rejected, the Globe-Democrat reported.
As a child New York Giants fan it was enough of a betrayal that they were moving out of town. Selling Willie Mays? I can’t even imagine. Being six or seven at the time, I hadn’t the slightest idea that the Giants trailed the league in attendance and in revenue. We had Willie and all seemed good to me. Our most common schoolyard argument was who had the best center fielder, Mays, Mantle or Snyder? No need to say whose side I was on.
Easy to understand how Willie Mays appealed to youths.
In the authorized biography of Mays, author James S. Hirsch wrote, “His faith in kids is unconditional, for in them he sees himself _ innocent souls who need kind words and meaningful support, as he once did, to fulfill their dreams.”
Mays gave time and money to children’s causes _ and, of course, there are those famous pictures of him playing stickball in the street in New York.
In July 1955, he was one of 32 sports figures invited to the White House for a meeting with President Eisenhower on how to interest youngsters in competitive sports. “We haven’t got half enough parks for the kids in New York,” Mays told reporters on the White House lawn.
According to the biography, Mays remained accessible to young fans. “Get me talking about kids,” Mays said, “and you’ve got me talking about one of my two favorite subjects. Baseball is the other.”
Mays said that what “you can learn from kids is how to get along with people. They understand you, and they accept you as an equal.”