RetroSimba

Willie Mays was having an unhappy 25th birthday the afternoon of May 6, 1956, at St. Louis.

Batting cleanup for the Giants in a doubleheader against the Cardinals, Mays went hitless in the opener and stranded five base runners as St. Louis prevailed, 5-4.

Willie’s birthday blues extended into the second game. In the first inning, he retrieved Red Schoendienst’s double and unleashed a wild throw that sailed past third baseman Foster Castleman and landed in the seats on one hop. Schoendienst scooted to home plate on the error, giving the Cardinals a 1-0 lead.

Mays was such an exceptional ballplayer, though, that even when his hitting and fielding were askew, he could find another way to beat a team. In this instance, it was his base running that sparked the Giants to a Game 2 victory and gave Mays a birthday treat to celebrate. Mays swiped four bases in a game for the first time.

On the run

In his first three seasons with the Giants, Mays rarely attempted to steal bases, but manager Leo Durocher gave him the green light in 1955 and “I found out I could steal,” Mays told the Jersey Journal.

Mays swiped 24 bases in 28 attempts in 1955.

Durocher was Willie’s mentor and protector. When Bill Rigney took over as Giants manager in 1956, Mays had trouble adapting to the change. Rigney didn’t coddle Mays as Durocher had and tension developed between player and manager.

Mays hit .200 and made no steal attempts in the Giants’ first 13 games of 1956. A breakout came on May 4 at Milwaukee when Mays hit a home run and stole a base against Lew Burdette.

Then the Giants went to St. Louis for the Sunday twin bill on Willie’s birthday.

Coming up empty

In the opener, Mays went 0-for-5 against three Cardinals pitchers _ Harvey Haddix, Larry Jackson and Ellis Kinder.

He had hard luck against Haddix in the third. Batting with two on, two outs, Mays sent a drive to deep left. It looked to be a double or triple, but Rip Repulski made a leaping catch against the concrete wall.

Two innings later, Mays again batted with two on, but Larry Jackson got him to foul out to first baseman Wally Moon.

After Stan Musial put the Cardinals ahead, 5-4, with a home run versus Al Worthington in the eighth, Mays batted with one on in the ninth, but Ellis Kinder, the 41-year-old closer facing Mays for the first time, got him to fly out. Boxscore

Finding a weakness

Eager to atone for the error that gave St. Louis the lead in the first inning of Game 2, Mays led off the second with a single against Vinegar Bend Mizell. Back with the Cardinals after two years in the Army, Mizell was a left-hander who threw with a “slow, exaggerated delivery,” according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Mays was seeing Mizell for the first time. Willie was in the Army when Mizell had his first two seasons with St. Louis (1952-53).

As Mays took his lead off first, he “did not get a good read on Mizell’s move,” according to James S. Hirsch, author of the authorized biography “Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend.”

Willie’s hesitancy cost the Giants. Daryl Spencer followed with a grounder that the Cardinals converted into a double play _ Ken Boyer to Schoendienst to Moon.

If he reached base again, and Mays had no doubt he would, he was determined to take advantage of Mizell’s slow-motion windup. As biographer Hirsch noted, “Mays studied the pitcher from the bench. Left-handers were tougher to decipher, but he thought they all had one vulnerability: their eyes signaled their intentions. He also found a tip-off in Mizell’s delivery. With a speedy runner on first base, Mizell assumed, like most pitchers, that his fastball would give his catcher a better chance on an attempted steal, but Mays saw that Mizell kicked his right leg higher on a fastball, making that the ideal pitch on which to run.”

Next time up, in the fourth, Mays walked, got a running jump and stole second. Then he swiped third. He was stranded there, but Mays now knew he could run at will on Mizell and there was little that catcher Bill Sarni could do to stop him.

In the sixth, Mays walked again, stole second and “could feel the angry, frustrated stares of both Mizell and Sarni,” biographer Hirsch noted.

Sarni, who began his pro career at 15 with Los Angeles of the Pacific Coast League in 1943, had a strong arm and took pride in his ability to thwart stolen base attempts. He nailed 48 percent (70 of 146) of those trying to steal against him during his big-league career. After Mays ran wild against the Cardinals, Sarni told the Post-Dispatch, “I guess 26,000 people (at the game) will think I can’t throw.”

Applying pressure

With St. Louis ahead, 4-3, in the ninth, Mays led off against Mizell and singled. According to Hirsch, “Mizell tried to hold him with several throws, but Mays ran on the first pitch and beat the peg _ four steals in one game. He considered stealing third, though with none out, the attempt would have carried undue risk.”

“I could have taken third base easy,” Mays said.

Instead, Mays dashed home from second with the tying run on Daryl Spencer’s double against a rattled Mizell. After Ellis Kinder relieved, Foster Castleman bunted Spencer to third and Dusty Rhodes drove him in with a single, giving the Giants a 5-4 lead.

The Cardinals put two on with one out in their half of the ninth, but Hoyt Wilhelm came in and retired Bill Virdon and Walker Cooper on pop-outs to the catcher, preserving the win. Boxscore

NL’s first 30-30 player

A month after the base stealing show by Mays in St. Louis, Bill Sarni was sent with Red Schoendienst and others to the Giants in the trade that brought Alvin Dark to the Cardinals.

(Sarni threw out 15 of the 26 runners who tried to steal against him with the 1956 Giants. Impressed, the Giants projected him as their catcher in 1957, but on the first day of spring training Sarni, 29, suffered a heart attack. He survived but never played again.)

Willie Mays went on to steal 40 bases in 50 attempts and belt 36 home runs for the 1956 Giants, becoming the first National League player with at least 30 homers and 30 steals in a season.

(The first to do it in the American League was Ken Williams, with 39 homers and 37 steals for the 1922 St. Louis Browns. No AL player achieved the feat again until Tommy Harper, 31 homers; 38 steals, with the 1970 Milwaukee Brewers.)

Mays repeated the achievement in 1957, with 35 homers and 38 steals.

(In the long and prominent history of the Cardinals, none has achieved 30 steals and 30 homers in a season.)

Mays in 1956 became the first National League player to swipe 40 bases since Kiki Cuyler totaled 43 for the 1929 Cubs.

Mays led the NL in steals for four consecutive seasons: 1956 (40), 1957 (38), 1958 (31) and 1959 (27).

He had 338 steals in his big-league career, according to retrosheet.org, and he was successful on most of his attempts. For instance, Mays had 27 steals in 31 tries in 1959 and 18 in 20 attempts in 1962. At age 40 in 1971, Mays was caught just three times in 26 attempts.

Mays swiped four bases in a game just once after his thefts at St. Louis. That came against the Reds in 1957, the year the Cardinals tried to acquire Mays with a $750,000 cash offer to the Giants. Boxscore

As for Vinegar Bend Mizell, Mays remained his menace throughout his career. Mays hit .392 (40 for 102) versus Mizell, with six doubles, five triples, five home runs and a .488 on-base percentage.