RetroSimba

Three impact players who defined the style of the National League in the 1960s were Maury Wills of the Dodgers and Lou Brock and Bob Gibson of the Cardinals. Wills and Brock brought speed with their base stealing, Gibson brought power with his pitching, and all three brought savvy and smarts to a championship brand of baseball.

In the 10-year period from 1959 to 1968, the Cardinals and Dodgers combined to win seven league pennants and five World Series titles.

Wills (1962) and Gibson (1968) each earned a National League Most Valuable Player Award.

From 1960 to 1969, the only players to lead the National League in steals were Wills and Brock. Wills led each year from 1960 to 1965. Brock was the leader each year from 1966 to 1969.

In 1962, Wills established the major-league record for stolen bases in a season (104). Twelve years later, Brock broke the mark (with 118).

A switch-hitting shortstop, Wills totaled 2,134 hits and 586 stolen bases in 14 seasons in the majors with the Dodgers, Pirates and Expos.

Record in St. Louis

On Sept. 23, 1962, at St. Louis, Wills, 29, had two stolen bases against the Cardinals, giving him 97 for the season and breaking the major-league record (96) established by Ty Cobb of the 1915 Tigers.

“Mercurial Maury Wills, a preacher’s son with the heart of a burglar, became the greatest base stealer in modern times,” Frank Finch wrote in the lead to his game story in the Los Angeles Times.

Wills twice stole second in the game against the battery of pitcher Larry Jackson and catcher Carl Sawatski. Boxscore

For the season, Wills finished with 104 steals in 117 tries. He was successful on 11 of 12 stolen base attempts versus the 1962 Cardinals.

In his book “Oh, Baby, I Love It,” Cardinals catcher Tim McCarver said of Wills, “He opened up baseball’s eyes to what speed can do for a team.”

“Maury Wills is the greatest slider and the quickest starter in the history of the game,” Phillies manager Gene Mauch told Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray in 1965. “He gets the base stolen the first five feet. He’s the most unafraid runner I’ve ever seen.”

In the book “We Played the Game,” McCarver said, “Maury Wills was smart. No one was better at sliding into a base. He had a sixth sense that told him how to be safe. If he knew it would be a close play, he’d slide into the glove and kick the ball out, or he’d avoid the tag and reach the corner of a base with his hand.”

One reason the Cardinals acquired catcher Bob Uecker from the Braves on the eve of the 1964 season opener was to try to slow down the base stealing of Wills.

Walks will haunt

Wills could field (two Gold Glove awards) and hit (five times in the top 10 in the National League in hits) as well as steal bases. Video

With the Dodgers in 1965, he had five hits in a game against the Cardinals. Boxscore

In the 1966 All-Star Game at St. Louis, Wills’ single in the 10th inning drove in Tim McCarver with the winning run for the National League.

With the Pirates in 1967, Wills slugged a three-run home run against the Cardinals’ Steve Carlton in Pittsburgh. “That’s the first one I’ve ever hit over the left field wall at Forbes Field,” Wills told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I was the most surprised person in the ballpark when the ball cleared the wall.” Boxscore

Wills had 15 hits versus Carlton in his career, but the home run was the only one that wasn’t a single.

Against another future Hall of Famer, Bob Gibson, Wills batted .211 and had a paltry on-base percentage of .261. Of Wills’ 26 hits in 123 at-bats versus Gibson, 22 were singles and four were doubles.

In his book “On the Run,” Wills said, “Bob Gibson was the toughest pitcher for me to hit. He had a little slider he’d throw in on my fists. It was small but hard, and I just couldn’t get around on it.”

In the book “From Ghetto to Glory,” Gibson said, “I don’t have any trouble with Maury. I try to throw him high fastballs and let him hit it in the air. He’s not strong enough to hit the ball out. When he’s batting left-handed, he’ll hit a lot of fly balls to left field if you get it up and away.”

Wills drew nine career walks from Gibson, but only one from 1963 to 1971.

In the book “Sixty Feet, Six Inches,” Gibson explained, “If you’re pitching to Maury Wills, for heaven’s sake don’t walk him. I learned to not be too fancy with the little guys who couldn’t hit home runs. Make them take their cuts.”

When Wills did reach base against Gibson, the Cardinals’ ace would try to keep him from stealing by going into the stretch position and then pausing for as long as possible. In the book “Stranger to the Game,” Gibson said, “After I’d been in the league a few years, I stopped wasting my time and energy by throwing to first to hold runners on. I eventually learned that I didn’t have to throw the ball to keep the runner close. I just held it a little longer. That drove Maury Wills crazy.”

In a typical Gibson wisecrack, he also said in the “Sixty Feet, Six Inches” book, “Honestly, though, when Wills was on base it didn’t bother me as much as you might think because I was resigned to the fact that Tim McCarver, my good buddy and catcher, wasn’t going to throw him out. I loved pitching to McCarver, but we both know that he wasn’t about to throw out Maury Wills.”

(McCarver, no doubt, would like to have it noted that on July 16, 1964, at St. Louis, he twice threw out Wills attempting to steal second. The first time was with Ray Sadecki pitching and the other was with Mike Cuellar on the mound. Boxscore)

Running a stop sign

In 1974, Lou Brock was 35 when he made his bid to break Wills’ record for stolen bases in a season. Though he’d led the National League in steals seven times before 1974, Brock never had achieved 100. His highest total was 74 in 1966.

In Brock’s autobiography, “Stealing is my Game,” Hall of Famer Stan Musial said, “I don’t think Lou or anybody else believed Maury Wills’ mark would topple after only 12 years. It looked like one of those eternal records. What Maury did was magnificent. Lou had to have everything going for him in 1974 to do even better.”

In his book “On the Run,” Wills recalled, “As the season went on and Lou Brock got closer to my record, I found myself watching the games on TV and rooting for the pitchers. Nothing worked.”

According to Wills, Brock called him for advice during the season.

“My legs are hurting, Maury,” Brock said. “What should I do?”

Wills said he jokingly replied, “Ice them down, Lou. Take a couple weeks off. Then quit.”

In his book, Wills said, “The record was my identity. I was the stolen base king. I didn’t want to see my record broken. It meant a lot to me. Records were made to be broken, but not mine.”

On Sept. 10, 1974, Brock got his 105th stolen base of the season, breaking Wills’ record, in a game against the Phillies at St. Louis,

“I wasn’t at the game when Brock stole his 105th base,” Wills said in his book. “I was at the NBC studio waiting to comment on it.”

Asked how he felt about seeing the record surpassed, Wills said he replied, “I don’t like it at all. I wasn’t pulling for him. I wasn’t wishing him any bad experiences or any harm, but I wasn’t pulling for him.”

In Brock’s autobiography, his collaborator, Franz Schulze, wrote of Wills, “The way he responded to it warms my heart. He took an attitude which to me is as rational as Brock’s. He grieved over the winnowing away of the single accomplishment in which he had taken the greatest pride. He didn’t like to give up what was precious and hard-earned. So far as I’m concerned, that’s a perfectly healthy outlook. Lou, just as smart, just as honest, thought so, too.”

Hall of Famer Ernie Banks said in the Brock autobiography, “People like to contrast Lou and Maury. You know, Lou has the short slide. Maury had the great, broad hook slide.

“Well, I think they’re much more alike than different because the best thing about both of them is their brains. I’ve seen Lou and Maury both psyche out a pitcher as if they were inside the man’s head, just reading the meter. After the smarts, it’s their motivation. Both wanted tremendously to get where they are.”