MLB commissioner Rob Manfred announced on Friday that MLB has renamed the World Series Most Valuable Player Award in honor of Hall of Famer Willie Mays. Starting with the 2017 World Series, the award will now be known as the Willie Mays World Series Most Valuable Player. More from Manfred:
"Major League Baseball is thrilled to honor Willie Mays on our game's biggest stage and in a manner that befits his many contributions to the sport. Since making 'The Catch' on September 29, 1954, Willie has been a part of World Series history. This annual recognition will forever celebrate the life and career of a legend of the National Pastime."
Mays' legendary catch, of course, took place in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series on September 29. With runners on first and second, no outs and the score tied 2-2 in the top of the eighth, Vic Wertz of the Indians smoked a 2-1 Don Liddle offering to deep into the center-field expanse at the Polo Grounds. Take it away, Mr. Mays ...
An under-appreciated part of this play is Mays' heave back to the infield, the force of which sent his hat flying. That throw kept Larry Doby from advancing two bases on the tag-up (he ran on Wertz's drive and had to scramble back to second and thus was able to make it only to third). When Wertz stepped to the plate, the Indians had a 68.8 percent chance of winning Game 1. Mays' catch-and-throw knocked roughly five percentage points off that figure. Once reliever Marv Grissom came in and recorded the final two outs of the frame, the Giants had flipped it and had better than a 55 percent chance of winning. Those drastically improved fortunes started with Mays' impossible catch. Thus what you see above remains one of the greatest plays in baseball history.
Here's the overhead rendering courtesy of the most excellent artist Justin Bopp ...
That really gives you an idea of the absurd amount of ground that Mays had to cover. The Giants went on to sweep the 111-win Indians in what stands as one of the biggest upsets in World Series history.
The World Series MVP as we know it wasn't a thing until the following year, 1955. In all, Mays played in four World Series -- 1951, 1954, 1962, and 1973 (with the Mets). Only in 1954 did he hit well (.444 OBP with four runs scored), and of course he made that iconic snare.
As for '54, would Mays have been the World Series MVP had such a laurel existed? Quite possibly. He might have gotten competition from Dusty Rhodes, who hit a pinch-hit, walk-off, 10th-inning home run off Bob Lemon to win Game 1, and then he hit another key homer off Early Wynn in Game 2.
The magnitude of Mays' catch, though, is inescapable. Some plays, we don't really gain a purchase on their import until years later. That wasn't the case with The Catch, though. Poke around newspaper archives, and contemporary reportage uses descriptors like "amazing" and "game-saving" and "unthinkable" to characterize Mays' feat. Also, regard these grainy faces of fans from the video above ...
Those are people who've just witnessed something they immediately recognized as unforgettable. It seems quite possible that had the World Series MVP existed in the fall of '54, those tasked with awarding it would've sensed that the series turned on Mays' catch.
An obvious response to Friday's announcement will be something like, "How can they name an award after someone who never won it"? Asking that favors the literal over the spiritual. There's a time for that, but maybe the rebranding of an award in the service of honoring one of the greatest ballplayers ever and his greatest moment ever is an occasion for the latter.
So the Willie Mays World Series Most Valuable Player it is, on the occasion of one of the game's leading miracles. Nothing wrong with that.
