Maury Wills, who revolutionized baseball with his ability to steal bases and was the MVP of the National League in 1962 for the Dodgers, has died.
“He just loved the game of baseball, loved working and loved the relationship with players,” Roberts said. “We spent a lot of time together. He showed me how to appreciate my craft and what it is to be a big leaguer. He just loved to teach. So I think a lot of where I get my excitement, my passion and my love for the players is from Maury.”
Batting leadoff, he hit .299 that season, collecting 208 hits, all but 29 of them singles. At the just-opened Dodger Stadium, though, those singles brought chants of “Go! Go! Go!” and Wills was happy to oblige, usually successfully. Wills stole 586 bases in his 14-year career and, in his retirement, told the Centre Daily Times of State College, Pa., “When you’re a base stealer, you’re a different cut of guy. ... You’ve got to be arrogant to be a good base stealer.”
He hobnobbed with entertainers, even playing Las Vegas gigs himself, singing while accompanying himself on banjo, guitar or ukulele, but wasn’t always a clubhouse favorite, even though he was the team captain. Instead of flying directly to Los Angeles and getting treatment, he stopped for a week in Honolulu, where he joined singer Don Ho in his act, playing his banjo, singing and joking. Bavasi, vacationing in Hawaii with his wife, happened to catch the act one evening and shortly thereafter Wills was traded to Pittsburgh.
That, coupled with his deteriorating relationship with Aldrich, sent him into a tailspin. He binged on booze and cocaine, locking himself in his house alone, staying high for days at a time, covering the windows with blankets, hallucinating, weathering intense paranoia, contemplating suicide. “Some people get old but never grow up,” Wills said of his dark days. “That’s what happened to Maury Wills. In those three years, I aged 15 years.”
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