Happy Birthday to the late and great Shortstop Maury Willis. In a career that lasted 14 seasons, mainly with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Montreal Expos, Willis had a noteworthy career playing a brutal position at Shortstop.

Career Statistics/Accolades (1959-1972):

.281 BA 2,134 HITS 20 HR 458 RBI 1,067 RUNS .330 OBP 

  • 7x All-Star
  • 3x World Series Champion (1959, 1963 & 1965)
  • 2x Gold Glove 
  • 1962 NL MVP

During the prime years of his career, Willis was one of the core members of three Los Angeles Dodger World Series teams. As a Switch Hitter, Willis found himself hitting leadoff and was credited for reviving the Stolen Base. He stole 586 bases for a career, leading the league in Stolen Bases in six consecutive seasons. Ideally, he was arguably the best leadoff hitter of that period based on the number of bases he could steal.

 In 1962, he took home the NL MVP award with a stat line of…

.299 BA 208 HITS 6 HR 48 RBI 130 RUNS .347 OBP in 165 Games

He also broke Ty Cobb’s single-season record of 96 in 1915 that year. While Wills had broken Cobb’s record, baseball increased its number of games played that year from 154 to 162. It wasn’t until after Game #154 that Willis stole his 97th base. As a result, the Commissioner at the time, Ford Frick, ruled that both records were separate. Nonetheless, with his record-breaking season, the rest of the league was put on notice, and opposing pitchers feared when a runner was on. In his career, he stole 30 or more bases ten times.

Overall, Wills had himself one hell of a career; winning an MVP at Shortstop is a big deal. He took home a couple of Gold Gloves at SS. He was average defensively throughout over 13,000 innings at SS, with his lifetime .963 Fielding Percentage, the league average among Shortstops during his career. Offensively, for a leadoff hitter at Shortstop, his numbers are very comparable to other Hall of Fame Shortstops. While he never made the Hall of Fame, the late Maury Wills should be remembered not only as an above-average player but as the guy who brought Stolen Bases back into the game. Wills set the tone for guys like Lou Brock, Rickey Henderson, and Tim Raines, who those three would combine for 3,152 Stolen Bases.

References:

  1. Maury Wills via Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maury_Wills#
  2. Maury Wills Career Statistics via Baseball-Reference:  https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/willsma01.shtml