Willie McCovey made the Cardinals pay for disrespecting an elder.
On June 15, 1979, with the score tied at 6-6, a Giants runner on second and two outs in the bottom of the 13th inning, the Cardinals opted to give an intentional walk to Jack Clark and take their chances with McCovey, who was 41 years old and in the twilight of a Hall of Fame career.
McCovey foiled the strategy, hitting the first pitch from Darold Knowles over the fence at Candlestick Park and lifting the Giants to a 9-6 walkoff victory.
McCovey hit 521 home runs, including 41 against the Cardinals, in a 22-year career in the big leagues with the Giants, Padres and Athletics.
One of his most impressive feats came in June 1979 when he silenced skeptics by hitting three home runs in less than 24 hours in a pair of wins against the Cardinals.
Still in the game
At spring training in 1979, critics clamored for the Giants to start Mike Ivie at first base instead of McCovey. Ivie was 26 and batted .308 for the Giants in 1978. McCovey hit .228 for the 1978 Giants and appeared to some to be finished as a ballplayer.
Ivie opened the 1979 season as the Giants’ first baseman but after two months his batting average was .244 and manager Joe Altobelli began playing McCovey more.
When the Cardinals came to San Francisco for a three-game series on June 15, 1979, McCovey was in the lineup as the cleanup batter and first baseman for the Friday night opener.
McCovey led off the fourth inning and lined a 3-and-0 pitch from starter Pete Vuckovich over the wall in left-center for a home run, giving the Giants a 2-1 lead.
The Giants led, 6-5, until the Cardinals got a run in the eighth.
McCovey nearly delivered a game-winning hit in the 11th. With one out and runners on second and first, McCovey hit a line drive to right-center. Rob Andrews, the runner on second, took off, thinking the ball was a hit, but right fielder George Hendrick was positioned to make the catch and throw to second before Andrews could get back, completing a double play.
“They had no business playing me the way they did,” McCovey said to United Press International. “Since when doesn’t the right fielder play me on the line? They did the wrong thing and got lucky.”
Big Mac attack
In the 13th, the Giants had Larry Herndon on first base, one out, when Andrews hit a bouncer to third baseman Ken Oberkfell, who was thinking he could turn a double play, but the ball struck Oberkfell in the chest and he was only able to get the out at first.
“I got caught between hops,” Oberkfell said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
With Herndon on second, two outs, Clark was at the plate and McCovey was on deck. Clark, the future Cardinal, was a right-handed batter facing Knowles, a left-hander. After the count went to 2-and-0, Knowles was instructed to walk Clark intentionally.
McCovey batted left-handed and the Cardinals figured Knowles had a better chance of retiring him than he did Clark. McCovey had produced two hits in 14 career at-bats versus Knowles.
The strategy backfired. Knowles’ first pitch to McCovey was a mistake, “a hanging slider,” he said, and McCovey uncoiled his 6-foot-4 frame and crushed a towering drive over the fence in right-center for the sixth walkoff home run of his career.
“I knew it was gone the second I hit it,” McCovey said.
Knowles, disgusted, flung his glove into the air as McCovey circled the bases. Boxscore
Experience matters
The long game required a quick turnaround for the players, who returned to Candlestick Park the next morning, June 16, 1979, for a Saturday afternoon start time.
McCovey was back in the cleanup spot and in the third inning he hit a two-run home run against starter Silvio Martinez, extending the Giants’ lead to 3-0 and propelling them to a 6-1 triumph. Boxscore
“Willie McCovey is one of the chosen people,” Altobelli said to the San Francisco Examiner. “He’s a living legend.”
The home run was the sixth in McCovey’s last eight games.
“You can’t judge a guy on age,” McCovey said. “Guys over 35 can still do it, but for some reason you have to keep proving it. Our society is geared to youth and people are brainwashed that you have to be young to do anything.”
McCovey finished with 15 home runs in 1979 and he returned for a final season in 1980, enabling him to play in four decades during a big-league career started in 1959.
McCovey hit 421 of his career home runs against right-handers and he had success against several Cardinals, including Bob Gibson (.290 batting average against, seven home runs), Nelson Briles (.353, seven home runs) and Ray Washburn (.366, three home runs).
RetroSimba 
Willie should have been an all-star in 1967, sorry Ernie.
The all-star first basemen for the National League in 1967 were starter Orlando Cepeda of the Cardinals and backup Ernie Banks of the Cubs. Willie McCovey, who was left off the team, went on to hit 31 home runs with 91 RBI for the 1967 Giants. Banks finished with 23 home runs and 95 RBI for the 1967 Cubs.
In the final game at old Busch Stadium (May 8, 1966), McCovey hit a grand slam.
You’re close. On May 8, 1966, in the final game at the original Busch Stadium, Willie McCovey, pinch-hitting for Hal Lanier, hit a three-run home run against Tracy Stallard with two outs in the 6th, breaking a 5-5 tie. Check out my story on that game, along with the boxscore: https://retrosimba.com/2016/05/08/the-story-of-the-final-game-at-original-busch-stadium/
I was there, and all these years later find out it wasn’t a grand slam! My eight-year-old eyes deceived me. I do remember Willie Mays’ homer, and Bob Skinner’s blast (and last career homer) into dead-center, though.
I can relate. I attended my first big-league game when I was 7. For years, into early adulthood, when recalling the game. I’d tell how Cardinals beat Mets, 3-2. I was stunned when I found the Boxscore to learn it was the Mets who won, 3-2. Youngster’s perspective and passage of time do funny things to memory.
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