FAREWELL TO A GENTLE GIANT
Willie McCovey, Hall of Famer and beloved first baseman, dies at 80
Willie McCovey, the 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’ tagteam 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.”
The Giants cited “a battle with ongoing health issues” in announcing McCovey’s death at Stanford Hospital on Wednesday. His passing echoed across baseball, including to the steps of Cooperstown.
“Baseball has lost a giant, in every sense of the word,’’ said Jeff Idelson, president of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
While Mays brought the theatrics, McCovey was the reliable straight man and the most feared left-handed 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 part of San Francisco Bay beyond the right-field field fence at AT&T Park to be named McCovey Cove in his honor.
“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 latecareer renaissance by returning to the Giants after a three-year absence.
“You knew right away he wasn’t an ordinary ballplayer. He was so strong, and he had the gift of knowing the strike zone,’’ Hank Aaron, his contemporary, said in a statement released by the Hall of Fame. “There’s no telling how many home runs he would have hit if those knees weren’t bothering him all the time and if he played in a park other than Candlestick.”
In all, McCovey was a six-time All-Star whose career home run total ties him with Ted Williams and Frank Thomas for 20th on the all-time list. Before Barry Bonds passed him, McCovey had more home runs than any other lefthanded hitter in National League history.
“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’s home run total includes 18 grand slams, a figure topped by only four players. He was elected to Cooperstown on his first ballot, in 1986. In his induction speech that year, he said: “Baseball and family together have shaped my character and my values and my career. Together they have brought me before you today.”
McCovey was the only player to belt 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 Montreal.
McCovey’s power was so prodigious that New York Mets manager Casey Stengel, in a pregame 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 whenever he reached out for an infielder’s throw. He became known as “Stretch.”
The native of Mobile, Alabama, burst into the league on July 20, 1959, when he enjoyed a 4-for-4 debut against Philadelphia 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 call-up 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 only 52 games during that ’59 season, but his relentless hot streak — .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 him and another young star, Orlando Cepeda. The two 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 National League in home runs three times, including in 1968-69 when he became 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 initially as a New York import. 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 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 A’s (nine games at the end of the ’76 season) before enjoying a prolonged swan song in San Francisco.
He hit 29 home runs in 1977, when he was 39 years old, and followed with two more seasons. He hit the end of the road in 1980, when he retired at midseason. He played his last game in Los Angeles and delivered a sacrifice fly as a pinch hitter in the eighth inning to give the Giants a 4-3 lead.
A capacity crowd — at Dodger Stadium, no less — gave him a long standing ovation. “I’ve never seen an opposing player get an ovation like that here,’’ Giants coach Jim Lefebvre, a former Dodger, told Peters. “Baseball is going to miss him.”
Born to Frank and Esther McCovey on Jan. 10, 1938, in Mobile, Alabama, Willie Lee McCovey was raised with seven brothers. It was the city’s playground director, Jesse Thomas, who arranged for Willie to get a tryout in front of Giants scouts Alex Pompez and Jack Schwarz, who promptly signed him to a contract.
One of McCovey’s first minor league managers, Salty Parker, encouraged the kid to stay true to the quiet, dignified nature that would make him a fan favorite.
“He said, ‘You’re tall and because you’re tall you’ll always be respected and you’ll always stand out in a crowd,’ ’’ McCovey recalled during his Cooperstown induction speech. “He said, ‘You are not a very outgoing person and you have an easy-going manner and people may interpret that as though you’re not caring.
“‘But whatever people say, stay the way you are. … Don’t ever change or let somebody try to make you something you’re not.’ ”
McCovey became so revered over time that the Giants established the Willie Mac Award in 1980 to honor the player who “best exemplifies the spirit and leadership consistently shown by McCovey throughout his career.”
Late in life, McCovey was a fixture at AT&T Park, watching games from a private suite near the broadcast booths. He spent the past 18 years as a senior adviser to the team.
“I am grateful that my father passed peacefully surrounded by his family and friends while listening to his favorite sports channel,” said McCovey’s daughter Allison McCovey.
“Every moment he will be terribly missed. He was my best friend and husband. Living life without him will never be the same,” said his wife, Estela McCovey. The two were married in August after many years together.
McCovey is also survived by his sister Frances and his brothers, Clauzell and Cleon.
The Giants said a public celebration of McCovey’s life will be announced at a later date. However, fans who wish to offer their condolences may send letters to the McCovey family in care of the San Francisco Giants, attention Forever 44, 24 Willie Mays Plaza, San Francisco, CA 94107. Or they may email their thoughts to Forever44@ sfgiants.com.