Dodgers Dugout: The 25 greatest Dodgers of all time, No. 11: Maury Wills

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell as we continue the top-25 countdown.

Readers voted in droves, submitting 15,212 ballots by email, Twitter and Facebook. Voters were asked for their top 10 Dodgers in order from 1 to 10, with first place receiving 12 points, second place nine points, third place eight, all the way down to one point for 10th place.

The last time we did this was in 2018, and there were some changes in the rankings.

So, without further ado:

The 25 greatest Dodgers, No. 11: MAURY WILLS (19,442 points)
2018 rank: 12th

Wills made the stolen base popular again. In 1960, his first full season as the Dodgers’ shortstop, Wills led the league with 50 stolen bases, becoming the first National League player to steal 50 since Max Carey stole 51 in 1923. Wills stole more bases by himself than three NL teams did.

1961 was a bit of a down year as he stole only 35, which was still more than the entire Pittsburgh Pirates team (29).

1962 was his year though. Wills broke Ty Cobb‘s 47-year-old record by stealing 104 bases and was named NL most valuable player. He stole more bases than every other NL team.

In 1965, he stole 94 bases, more than every other team except the St. Louis Cardinals, who stole 100.

So you could say that Wills is the Babe Ruth of base stealing.

The stolen base had become a little-used tool in today’s game, with most analytics showing that the value of stealing a base is not worth nearly as much as the damage done if the runner being caught, until changes were made to the rules before this season, (such as limiting the number of throws to first and widening the bags) . Even then, the Dodgers have attempted only 122 steals this season. In 1962, Wills attempted 117 steals and the Dodgers attempted 241.

By the way, in the year Wills stole 104 bases, he was caught only 13 times. After the season, Wills said, “Do I think I’ll ever steal 104 bases again? No, I can’t believe I did it now. I don’t see how I can ever come close again. The physical beating I took is more than I want to endure.”

Wills battled substance-abuse issues for years but became sober and spent his time, much like Don Newcombe, helping others with their problems. He should be in the Hall of Fame.

“Each and every day, I get a phone call from Los Angeles, from some kid who I helped to turn his life around,” Wills said in 2016. “We review what he continues to need to do. We review his day, and his thinking. I’ll call him on it, if I think it’s going in a direction it doesn’t need to go.

“There’s about eight of them. I keep my phone close to me at all times.”

Wills died on Sept. 19, 2022, surrounded by family. He was 89.

Dave Roberts after Wills’ death: “This is a tough one for me. He just loved the game of baseball, loved working and loved the relationship with players. We spent a lot of time together. He kind of really showed me to appreciate my craft and what it is to be a big leaguer. He just loved to teach. I think a lot of where I get my excitement, my passion, my love for players is from him.”

A year before he died, Wills answered question from readers of this newsletter. You can read that here. He and his wife, Carla, are two of the nicest people I have ever come across while writing this newsletter.

Previously

No. 12: Zack Wheat

No. 13: Gil Hodges

No. 14: Walter Alston

No. 15: Steve Garvey

No. 16: Branch Rickey

No. 17: Walter O’Malley

No. 18: Don Sutton

No. 19: Orel Hershiser

No. 20: Mike Piazza

No. 21: Don Newcombe

No. 22: Mookie Betts

No. 23: Dazzy Vance

No. 24: Kirk Gibson

No. 25: Eric Gagné

Smith injury

It turns out Will Smith has been playing while recovering from a broken rib. The rib was broken when he was hit by a pitch from St. Louis’ Jake Woodford on April 30. As Mike DiGiovanna pointed out in this story, this explains his struggles the last couple of months.

“Yeah, it hasn’t been great the last couple of months,” Roberts said. “Our guys looked at where he got hit in the ribs and just kind of cleaned up the mechanics. He went a little sideways, and that led to a lot of missed pitches in the hitting zone.

“The pain wasn’t [the problem]. I think it was more of, there was probably a little bit of guarding initially, and then when you’re talking about the rib, the oblique, that sort of dovetails into some changed mechanics.”

Reunited

It was a touching scene Tuesday when Brusdar Graterol pitched the eighth inning. It was the first time he was able to pitch in the majors in front of his mom, who finally was allowed to leave Venezuela. When he retired the side, he pointed to his mom and started crying as he hugged Roberts and his teammates.

“A lot of emotion, so much emotion that I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know how to control it,” Graterol said in Spanish. “I only cry out of happiness. My mom and I, we grew up together [in Calabozo, Venezuela]. She was a mother and father at the same time. I’ve dedicated each second, each minute to her so she feels proud of me.”

You can read more about this here.

And finally

The Dodgers pay tribute to Maury Wills. Watch and listen here.