Giants legend Willie McCovey dies at 80
Willie McCovey, the San Francisco Giants first baseman who terrorized pitchers with his majestic home runs and charmed fans with his easy grace, died Wednesday, the team announced. He was 80.
One of the most beloved Giants of all-time, McCovey slugged 521 home runs over the course of a career that spanned four decades. He will be best remembered as Willie Mays’ tag-team partner in San Francisco’s formidable lineups of the 1960s.
“San Francisco and the entire baseball community lost a true gentleman and legend, and our collective hearts are broken,” Giants president and CEO Larry Baer said Wednesday. “Willie was a beloved figure throughout his playing days and in retirement. He will be deeply missed by the many people he touched. For more than six decades, he gave his heart and soul to the Giants _ as one of the greatest players of all time, as a quiet leader in the clubhouse, as a mentor to the Giants who followed in his footsteps, as an inspiration to our Junior Giants, and as a fan cheering on the team from his booth.”
While Mays brought the theatrics, McCovey was the reliable straight man and the most feared lefthanded hitter of his era. Listed at 6-foot-4, and wiry strong at 198 pounds, McCovey uncoiled a sweeping swing that blasted balls into orbit.
His famously long home runs inspired the water beyond the right-field field fence AT&T Park to be named in his honor — “McCovey Cove.”
“If you pitch to him, he’ll ruin a baseball,” rival manager Sparky Anderson once said. “There’s no comparison between McCovey and anybody else in the league.”
He was the National League rookie of the year in 1959, the league’s MVP in 1969 and the comeback player of the year in 1977 when he kicked off a late-career renaissance by returning to the Giants after a threeyear absence.
In all, McCovey was a six-time All-Star whose career home run total ties him with Ted Williams for 18th on the all-time list. Before Barry Bonds passed him, McCovey had more home runs than any other left-handed hitter in N.L. history.
McCovey’s total includes 18 grand slams, a figure topped by only three players. He was inducted into Cooperstown on his first ballot, in 1986.
“He used to scare me the most when I was playing first base,” Joe Torre once said. “I was just praying he wouldn’t hit one down the line. He was so strong, one of the most awesome players I’ve ever seen.”
McCovey was the only player to hit a baseball over the upper deck beyond the right-field fence at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. And, long before there was a “McCovey Cove” he hit balls into the community pool beyond the outfield fences in Jarry Park in Cincinnati.
McCovey’s power was so prodigious that New York Mets manager Casey Stengel, in a pre-game planning meeting for dealing with him, joked to his pitcher: “Where would you like me to position the right fielder _ in the upper deck or the lower deck?”
One of McCovey’s most famous swings, however, resulted in a ball that never left the infield. With the potential winning runs on base, McCovey hit a searing liner that New York Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson snagged for the final out of Game 7 of the 1962 World Series. It haunted McCovey, and San Francisco fans, for years. No less an authority than Charlie Brown once screamed into the sky: “Why couldn’t McCovey have hit the ball just three feet higher?”
Primarily a first baseman, McCovey had the wingspan of a condor and when he reached in any direction in search of a throw. He became known as “Stretch.”
The native of Mobile, Ala., burst into the league on July 20, 1959 when he enjoyed a 4-for-4 debut against Phillies ace Robin Roberts, also a future Hall of Famer.
McCovey had spent the previous night packing into the wee hours after getting the late callup to the big leagues.
“I requested uniform No. 44 because I’ve always admired Hank Aaron,” McCovey recalled in his Hall of Fame induction speech. “And I was getting dressed when (manager) Bill Rigney came to me and said, ‘How do you feel?’
“I said, ‘fine,’ not wanting to tell him I had been up all night. He said, ‘Good, because you’re in there and you’re hitting third. You know whose spot that is? I’m moving Mays up to second today, so you know what we’re expecting of you.’ “
McCovey responded with two triples, two singles, three runs and two RBIs to lead a 7-2 victory. He would play just 52 games that ‘59 season, but his immediate onslaught — .354 average, 13 home runs, 38 RBIs _ was enough to capture rookie of the year honors.
Despite those splashy early days, McCovey bounced around for the next few seasons as the Giants struggled to make room for both him and another young star, Orlando Cepeda. The two were shuttled back and forth between first base and left field until the team cleared the logjam by trading Cepeda to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1966.
McCovey led the N.L. in home runs three times, including in ‘68-69 when he became just the fifth player in baseball history to capture back-to-back home run and RBI titles. He helped endear himself to Giants fans by tormenting Don Drysdale, a star pitcher for the rival Los Angeles Dodgers, with 12 career home runs. “He beat on me like a tom-tom,” Drysdale once said.
Because McCovey established his star while in San Francisco, his popularity often surpassed that of Mays, who was viewed as a New York import in his early days. Either way, the duo was a nightmare for opposing pitchers.
Mays and McCovey homered in the same game 68 times, a feat topped among teammates only by Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews (75 times) and Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth (73).
Nick Peters, the Hall of Fame baseball writer who chronicled McCovey’s career, once marveled that the first baseman “did it all despite arthritic knees, a troublesome hip, aching feet and assorted other ailments. He did it in the Candlestick Park cold and despite more intentional walks of any player of his era.”
McCovey overcame those hurdles to last 22 seasons in the big leagues. Though an icon with the Giants, he played briefly for the San Diego Padres (1973-76) and the Oakland A’s — nine games at the end of the ‘76 season — before enjoying a prolonged swan song in San Francisco.