The documentary "Say Hey, Willie Mays!" premieres Tuesday night at 9 ET on HBO and HBO Max. The documentary features black-and-white and color footage of Mays' career, plus interviews with Mays, 91, as well as many of his fellow baseball greats, from Barry Bonds and Reggie Jackson to Giants teammates Juan Marichal and Orlando Cepeda. This story, by future Hall of Fame inductee Dan Daniel, first appeared in the Dec. 22, 1954, issue of The Sporting News, under the headline, “Mays Only MVP Winner in First Full Major Season”.
NEW YORK, N. Y. — In winning the most valuable player award in the National League for 1954, Willie Mays, center fielder of the Giants, became the only man to gain the citation in his first complete season in the majors since the inception of the most valuable player competitions with the Chalmers award, away back in 1911.
It was in 1950 that Carl Hubbell signed Mays for the New York farm system and assigned him to Trenton. In 1951, Willie was lifted all the way to Triple-A, with Minneapolis. Before the season was two months old, Mays found himself at the Polo Grounds.
In 1952, Mays had barely started when he was taken into the Army. He was discharged last February in time to report to Leo Durocher for the spring training season.
Selection of Mays for the 1954 award did not surprise local fans. Rather were they flabbergasted by the revelation that one of the committee of 24 baseball writers responsible for the selection had thought so little of Willie as to place him no better than seventh.
In fact, metropolitan fandom cannot understand how another member of the 24 picked "Say-Hey" for nothing more distinguished than fifth.
16 First-Place Votes
Mays' winning score of 283 points on the basis of 14 for first, nine for second, eight for third and so on down to one for tenth, was compiled with 16 top votes, two seconds, three thirds, and one each for fourth, fifth and seventh.
Ted Kluszewski, first baseman of the Cincinnati Reds, beat Johnny Antonelli of the Giants for second place by 217 to 154. Kluszewski picked up seven firsts and Alvin Dark got the remaining one.
TSN Archives: Willie Mays is still having fun (July 25, 1970, issue)
Theodore had quite a year. He was high in homers with 49 and in runs baited in, with 141. He batted .326 and fully deserved his high rating.
Antonelli picked up six seconds, five thirds, five fourths, a couple of fifth places, one sixth and a pair of sevenths. Johnny's 21-7 record as an acquisition from Milwaukee in the Bobby Thomson deal made him the standout hurler of the league.
Brooklyn landed fourth place with Duke Snider, 135, and the Giants won fifth place with Alvin Dark, and his 110 points. Local fans are disappointed over the shortstop's failure to make a stronger showing.
Three-time MVP Stan Musial of the Cardinals fell under the 100-point level, with 97 for sixth place. Then came Philadelphia's Robin Roberts, 70, Milwaukee's Joe Adcock, 60, and Brooklyn's Pee Wee Reese, 53. Nobody else scored 50 points.
Roy Campanella of the Dodgers, who won the award in 1953 and also in 1951, failed to get a point in the 1954 competition. He was severely handicapped all season by a bad hand.
One Point for Sauer
Hank Sauer of the Cubs, who gained the big citation in 1952, was remembered in the 1954 contest with one point.
What with Mavs, Jackie Robinson and Campanella as a repeater, Negro players have won the National's MVP award, and the Landis Memorial Plaque that goes with it, four times within a space of six years, truly a notable record.
Mays was the most spectacular player in baseball all through the 1954 campaign, and it would be no misstatement to say that he provided the five-game margin by which the Polo Grounders dethroned the Dodgers.
Willie won the league title with .345, unfurled 41 homers and drove in 110 runs. His feats in the field were climaxed with his incredible catch on Vic Wertz in the World's Series. Mays has perhaps the greatest arm yet seen in baseball.
Mays now is in Puerto Rico, playing winter ball down there with considerable distinction and batting a terrific .423.
With Mays as top man in the National and Yogi Berra of the Yankees, as the player of the year in the American League, New York swept the awards for the first time since 1936, when they went to Carl Hubbell and Lou Gehrig.
Fourth Giant MVP
The Giants have won more than their share of laurels as a team and as individuals. But they have furnished amazingly few winners of annual citations. In fact, Mays is only the fourth winner for the Polo Grounders since Second Baseman Larry Doyle got the Chalmers car is 1912. Hubbell won in 1933 as well as 1936.
TSN Archives: Willie Mays named Player of the Decade for 1960s (Jan. 17, 1970, issue)
On the basis of the 1954 point score, these are the No. 1 players of the eight clubs in the National League: New York, Mays; Brooklyn, Snider; Milwaukee, Joe Adcock; Cincinnati, Kluszowaki; Philadelphia, Robin Roberts; St. Louis, Musial; Pittsburgh, Frank Thomas; Chicago, Ernie Banks.
The all-star team of the league, as indicated by the poll, is as follows: First base, Kluszewski, Cincinnati; second base, Red Schoendienst, Cardinals; third base, Ed Mathews, Milwaukee; shortstop, Dark, New York; right field, Musial, Cardinals; left field, Jim Rhodes, New York; center field, Mays, New York; catcher, Del Crandall, Milwaukee; pitcher, Antonelli, New York.
The American League's most valuable contest indicated strongly that the 24 committeemen would name Bob Grim, Yankee pitcher, as their rookie, of the year.
The leading yearling in the National League scoring was Shortstop Ernie Banks of the Cubs, with 14 points.
The Giants got eight men into the MVP scoring and ran away with the club leadership, with 601, as against 228 for second-place Brooklyn.
TSN Archives: The Catch (Oct. 13, 1954, issue)
This excerpt from The Sporting News’ recap of the 1954 World Series, between the New York Giants and Cleveland Indians, is by the great Frederick G. Lieb, who would be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. It first appeared in the Oct. 13, 1954, issue in which Lieb described Willie Mays’ iconic catch in Game 1 as “the turning point of the Series.” Wrote Lieb: “(T)his catch stood out, not only as the fielding gem of the 1954 Series, but as one of the greatest catches in all World’s Series competition.”
The amazing Willie Mays saved the game for his team with an eighth-inning catch which now is part of World’s Series history, ranking with the great catches made in the past. … With Larry Doby and Al Rosen on base and none out in the eighth, Wertz would have won the game then and there but for Mays’ miracle catch. Vic hit a terrific line smash to the deepest part of center field. There seemed no human possibility of the ball being caught, but Mays, running like a scare deer, caught it as it was sailing over his left shoulder jut before running into the five-foot wall in front of the center field bleachers. By that time the ball had traveled 460 feet.