Maury Wills

Maurice Morning Wills (born October 2, 1932) is a former Major League Baseball shortstop. The switch-hitter is best remembered for his years with the Los Angeles Dodgers (1959–1966, 1969–1972), but he also played with the Pittsburgh Pirates (1967–1968) and Montreal Expos (1969). He was an essential component of the Dodgers' championship teams in the mid-1960s, and is credited for reviving the stolen base as part of baseball strategy.

In a fourteen-year career, Wills batted .281 with twenty home runs, 458 runs batted in, 2,134 hits, 1,067 runs, 177 doubles, 71 triples, and 586 stolen bases in 1,942 games. As of 2009, Wills is a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers organization serving as a representative of the Dodgers Legend Bureau.

Early Days in DC
Maurice, or Sonny as he was called at Cardozo Senior High School, first showed up as an All City Pitcher in the local Washington Daily News. He played on Sal Hall's '48 Cardozo football team that went unbeaten and unscored upon. In the '49–'50 school year, 3 sport standout Sonny Wills, was named All City quarterback in football, basketball and Pitcher in baseball. On May 8, 1950 in a game against Phelps, Wills threw a one-hitter and struck out seventeen.

Playing career
In his first-full season (1960), Wills hit .295 and led the league with 50 stolen bases, being the first National League player to steal 50 since Max Carey stole 51 in 1923. Wills stole 104 bases in 1962 to set a new Major League record, breaking the old modern era mark of 96, set by Ty Cobb in 1915. Wills also outstole all of the other teams that year, the highest total being the Washington Senators' 99. Besides this, he hit .299, led the league in triples (10), and was selected the NL Most Valuable Player (beating out Willie Mays by seven points). Wills played a full 162 game schedule, plus all three games of the best of three regular season playoff series with the San Francisco Giants, giving him a total of 165 games played, a record that still stands for games played in a single season. His 104 steals remain a Major League record for switch-hitters.

Although Luis Aparicio had been stealing 50+ bases in the American League for several years prior to Wills' insurgence, Wills brought new prominence to the tactic. Perhaps this was due to greater media exposure in Los Angeles, or to the Dodgers' greater success, or to their extreme reliance on a low-scoring strategy that emphasized pitching, defense, and Wills' speed to compensate for their lack of productive hitters. Wills was a significant distraction to the pitcher even if he didn't try to steal, because he was a constant threat to do so. The fans at Dodger Stadium would chant, "Go! Go! Go, Maury, Go!" any time he got on base. A winner of the Gold Glove Award in 1961 and 1962, Wills was selected five times for the All-Star Game.

On September 21, 1969 in a game at Candlestick Park, against the Dodgers' arch-rival, the San Francisco Giants, with the score tied 3-3 in the 10th inning, Wills committed an error on Jim Davenport's ground ball, allowing Willie McCovey to score the winning run in walk-off fashion. Ironically, this game was the MLB debut of Bill Buckner, who would become infamous for committing an error that allowed the New York Mets to win Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.

Managing and retirement
After retiring, Wills spent time as a baseball analyst at NBC from 1973 through 1977. He also managed in the Mexican Winter League for four seasons, and let it be known he felt qualified to pilot a big-league club. In his book, How To Steal A Pennant, Wills claimed he could take any last-place club and make them champions within four years. The San Francisco Giants allegedly offered him a one-year deal, but Wills turned them down. Finally, in 1980, the Seattle Mariners fired Darrell Johnson and gave Wills the reins.

Wills' tenure was an unmitigated disaster. Baseball writer Rob Neyer, in his Big Book of Baseball Blunders criticized Wills for "the variety and frequency of [his] mistakes" as manager, calling them "unparalleled." In a short interview appearing in the June 5, 2006 issue of Newsweek, Neyer said, "It wasn't just that Wills couldn't do the in-game stuff. Wills's inability to communicate with his players really sets him apart. He said he was going to make his second baseman, Julio Cruz, his permanent shortstop. Twenty-four hours later he was back at second base. As far as a guy who put in some real time (as a manager), I don't think there's been anyone close to Wills."

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Steve Rudman, Wills made a number of gaffes. He called for a relief pitcher even though there was nobody warming up in the bullpen, held up another game for 10 minutes while looking for a pinch-hitter and even left a spring-training game in the sixth inning to fly to California.

The most celebrated incident of Wills' tenure as manager occurred on April 25, 1981. He ordered the Mariners' grounds crew to make the batter's boxes one foot longer than regulation. The extra foot was in the direction of the mound. However, Oakland Athletics manager Billy Martin noticed something was amiss and asked plate umpire Bill Kunkel to investigate. Under questioning from Kunkel, the Mariners' head groundskeeper admitted Wills had ordered the change. Wills claimed he was trying to help his players stay in the box. However, Martin suspected that given the large number of breaking-ball pitchers on the A's staff, Wills wanted to give his players an advantage. The American League suspended Wills for two games and fined him $500. American League umpiring supervisor Dick Butler likened Wills' actions to setting the bases 88 feet apart instead of 90 feet.

After leading Seattle to a dismal 20-38 mark to end the 1980 season, new owner George Argyros fired Wills on May 6, 1981 with the M's deep in last place at 6-18. This gave him a career record of 26-56 for a winning percentage of .317, one of the worst ever for a non-interim manager. Years later, Wills admitted he probably should have gotten some seasoning as a minor-league manager prior to being hired in Seattle.

The Maury Wills Museum is in Fargo, North Dakota at Newman Outdoor Field home of the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks. Maury was a coach on the team from 1996–1997 and currently serves as a radio color commentator for the RedHawks on KVOX-AM "740 The Fan" with play-by-play announcer Scott Miller.

Personal
In his autobiography, "On the Run: The Never Dull and Often Shocking Life of Maury Wills," Wills claims to have had a love affair with actress Doris Day as noted. Day denied this in her autobiography Doris Day: Her Own Story, and said it was probably advanced by the Dodgers organization for publicity purposes.

Wills was well known as an abuser of alcohol and cocaine until getting sober in 1989. In December 1983, Wills was arrested for cocaine possession after his former girlfriend, Judy Aldrich, had reported her car had been stolen. During a search of the car, police found a vial allegedly containing .06 of a gram of cocaine and a water pipe. The charge was dismissed three months later on the grounds of insufficient evidence.

The Dodgers paid for a drug treatment program, but Wills walked out and continued to use drugs until he began a relationship with Angela George, who encouraged him to begin a vitamin therapy program. The two later married. In his New Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James is highly critical of Wills as a person, but still calls him one of top 20 shortstops of all time, ranking him #19.

He is the father of former major leaguer Bump Wills, who played for the Texas Rangers and Chicago Cubs during his six-year MLB career. The two had a falling out following the publication of Maury's autobiography in 1991, involving a salacious anecdote, but now occasionally speak.

In 2009, Wills was honored by the city of Washington, D.C. and Cardozo Senior High School with the naming of the former Banneker Recreation Field in his honor. The field was completely renovated and serves as Cardozo's home diamond.

Highlights

 * 5-time All-Star (1961–63, 1965–66)
 * All-Star Game MVP (1962)
 * NL MVP (1962)
 * Twice Gold Glove (1961–62)
 * Twice led National League in At Bats (1961 and 1962)
 * Led National League in Triples (1962)
 * Led National League in Stolen Bases for 6 consecutive seasons (1960–65)
 * Led National League in Singles 4 times (1961–62, 1965 and 1967)
 * Led National League in Sacrifice Hits (1961)
 * Los Angeles Dodgers Career Stolen Base Leader (490)
 * Holds MLB record for most Games Played in a single season (165 in 1962)
 * Holds Los Angeles Dodgers Single-Season for At Bats (695 in 1962)
 * 7th MLB player to hit home runs from each side of the plate in a game (1962)
 * Won the Hickok Belt award (1962)
 * Stole 104 in 1962, still an MLB-record among switch-hitters

The stolen base “asterisk”
While Wills had broken Cobb's single season stolen base record in 1962, the National League had increased its number of games played per team that year from 154 to 162. Wills' 97th stolen base had occurred after his team had played its 154th game; as a result, Commissioner Ford Frick ruled that Wills' 104-steal season and Cobb's 96-steal season of 1915 were separate records, just as he had the year before (the American League had also increased its number of games played per team to 162) after Roger Maris had broken Babe Ruth's single season home run record. Both stolen base records would be broken in 1974 by Lou Brock's 118 steals; Brock had broken Cobb's stolen base record by stealing his 97th base before his St. Louis Cardinals had completed their 154th game.