McCOVEY, Willie Lee

(b. 10 January 1938 in Mobile, Alabama), one of the greatest power hitters in Major League Baseball history; one of only 17 players to hit 500 home runs over the course of a career.

McCovey was one of ten children of Frank McCovey and Ester Jones McCovey. McCovey's father, a laborer, died in 1963, four years after his son's major league debut. Like Hank Aaron, McCovey played for the Mobile Black Bears, a semiprofessional, African-American team, while still in high school. McCovey did not play baseball at Mobile's Central High School because it did not have a team. Upon graduating from high school in 1955, however, McCovey was signed by the New York Giants of the National League (NL) and sent to Sandersville, a farm team for the Giants within the Georgia State League.

McCovey quickly moved through the Giants minor league system, playing for Danville (Carolina League) in 1956, Dallas (Texas League) in 1957, and Phoenix (Pacific Coast League) in 1958 and 1959. With the Phoenix Giants in 1959, he had a tremendous season, hitting twenty-nine home runs and driving in ninety-two runs through late July. On 30 July McCovey was recalled to the Giants, who were now in San Francisco, but still won the home run title and a share of the runs batted in (RBI) lead for the Pacific Coast League that season.

On 30 July 1959 McCovey made his major league debut for the Giants against the future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts of the Philadelphia Phillies. McCovey went 4 for 4, with 2 triples and 2 singles in the Giants 7–2 victory. McCovey had an excellent rookie season, hitting 13 home runs and driving in 38 runs while batting .354 in only 52 games. Despite playing just over one-third of the season, the twenty-one-year-old McCovey was the unanimous choice for 1959 NL Rookie of the Year, succeeding teammate Orlando Cepeda.

In 1960 McCovey dropped off greatly, as he batted only .238 while hitting the same number of homers as he did in 1959 in twice as many games. He was sent to the Tacoma Giants of the Pacific Coast League to hone his skills and played with them for seventeen games. McCovey turned his career around in 1961 and regained his position in San Francisco. While he competed directly with Cepeda for the first base position, the two players remained close during the period and were roommates when the team went on the road. In 1962 McCovey continued to improve with 20 home runs and a .293 batting average in only 91 games for the Giants, who won the NL pennant that year. In the 1962 World Series, played against the New York Yankees, McCovey played 4 games and batted .200 with a home run. However, his performance in game seven almost made him a hero. In the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs, Willie Mays on second, Matty Alou on third, and the Yankees holding a 1–0 lead, McCovey ripped a screaming line drive towards right field. The Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson leaped into the air and caught the game-winning hit to end the game and the series. An exhibit of the greatest moments in baseball history by the National Baseball Hall of Fame calls that moment "just an inch higher." The 1962 World Series was McCovey's only opportunity to play in that contest.

Nicknamed "Stretch" because of his ability to get errant throws from infielders while playing first base, McCovey had some of his best seasons starting in 1963. That year he tied with Hank Aaron for the NL lead in home runs with forty-four. While his production dipped in 1964, he hit more than thirty-one homers every year from 1965 to 1970, and he led the NL in both home runs and RBI for both 1968 and 1969.

During the 1969 season, when he batted .320 with 45 home runs and 126 RBI, McCovey almost single-handedly kept the Giants in contention for the NL West title, which was eventually won by the Atlanta Braves. McCovey was elected Most Valuable Player of the National League, edging out the Mets Tom Seaver in a very close vote by baseball writers.

Throughout his career McCovey was plagued with injuries, primarily to his knees. His success on the field for the Giants began to wane in 1971 when he hit only 18 home runs and drove in 70 runs. While he had a slightly better season in 1973 with a batting average of .266, 29 home runs, and 75 RBI, McCovey was traded to the San Diego Padres at the end of the season. San Francisco fans were disappointed with the trade, although it appeared that the move, by pure baseball standards, was not bad for the team.

McCovey played with the Padres for two years, during which time his performance was mediocre in comparison to earlier seasons. In 1976 he had his worst year ever, batting .203 with only 7 home runs in 82 games. During that season, he was sold to the Oakland Athletics and became a free agent at the end of the season. McCovey signed with the Giants for the 1977 season and returned to a standing ovation in his first game. He repaid fan loyalty by playing one of his finest seasons ever in 1977, batting .280 with 28 home runs and 86 RBI, making him the clear choice for the Comeback Player of the Year award. McCovey played three more seasons with the Giants before retiring in 1980.

McCovey concluded his career in Major League Baseball with 521 home runs, tied with Ted Williams for ninth place on the all-time list of home run superstars at the time of his retirement. His lifetime statistics also included a batting average of .270, 1,555 RBI, and 2,211 hits. Moreover, McCovey at the time of his retirement was the foremost left-handed home-run batter in the history of the National League. McCovey is also the first player in baseball history to hit two home runs in the same inning twice in his career, and his eighteen grand slams place him first in the National League and second in the history of the major leagues in this category.

McCovey moved to the Giants front office as an instructor of major and minor league players and as the Community Fund Director. As his knees weakened in his later years, he became a senior advisor, working primarily with community groups. Since 1980 McCovey has presented the Willie Mac award, named in his honor, to the Giants player who "best exemplifies the spirit and leadership" shown by McCovey during his time with the Giants. In 1995, however, McCovey and fellow Hall of Famer Duke Snider were charged by the Internal Revenue Service with tax fraud for failure to report income associated with autograph shows. All told, McCovey was charged with failing to report $41,000 in income, a charge to which he pled guilty. This affair temporarily cooled McCovey's relationship with the Giants, and the team minimized his role for a few years.

In 1986, McCovey was the sixteenth player to be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in the first year of eligibility. In his induction speech, he thanked his family, including his daughter Allison, then acknowledged his relationship with the baseball fans of San Francisco, saying, "I've been adopted, too, by all the thousands of great Giants fans everywhere and by the city of San Francisco, where I've always been welcome and, like the Golden Gate Bridge and the cable cars, I've been made to feel like a landmark, too." Although Willie Mays is often recognized as the greatest player in Giants history, McCovey has a special place in the hearts of San Francisco fans. He started as a rookie shortly after the Giants moved west from New York City and remained with the team for most of his career. To acknowledge this association, the Giants named the water in the China Basin Channel just beyond the right field wall of the Pacific Bell Park, their home stadium built in 2000, in his honor. Long home runs hit over the seats beyond right field end up in McCovey's Cove, a fitting tribute to San Francisco's favorite home run hitter.

Information on McCovey is available in his player's file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, New York. McCovey is the coauthor of Hall of Fame Giants: In Commemoration of Willie McCovey ' s Induction (1986). Information about McCovey can also be found in Jacob Jordan, Six Seasons: A History of the Tacoma Giants, 1960–1965 (1996); Tom Schott and Nick Peters, The Giants Encyclopedia (1999); and other general interest histories of the San Francisco Giants, including Russ Hodges and Al Hirshberg, My Giants (1963), and Bruce Chadwick, The Giants: Memories and Memorabilia from a Century of Baseball (1993).

Corey Seeman