"The Catch" 3/28/17

Hey baseball fans!

I've never devoted an entire post to Willie Mays's famous catch in the 1954 World Series, which is pure blasphemy. So, here ya go.

It was Game One of the 1954 World Series. The Giants and Indians were tied at two entering the top of the eighth in the Polo Grounds in New York City. The young 1954 MVP Willie Mays was playing in center field and Sal Maglie was pitching for the Giants. Maglie quickly allowed Larry Doby and Al Rosen to reach base, which brought first baseman Vic Wertz up to the plate for Cleveland. Wertz was never that much of a power hitter and he wasn't even that big of a guy. But with two on and no one out, anything could happen, especially because Maglie was just taken out of the game and replaced with Don Liddle.

On a 2-2 count, Wertz swung at the Liddle pitch and smacked it on a fly to straightaway center field. The Polo Grounds, at the time, was gigantic, so Wertz would have had to hit the ball a good 500 feet to hit a home run. Nonetheless, Larry Doby who was on second base thought the ball was hit far enough over Willie Mays's head in center field for extra bases, so he started trotting to third from second. Mays, on the other hand, had other plans. He immediately started running after the fly ball. He must've ran over 150 feet before making an over-the-shoulder, no-look, game-saving catch for the Giants.

But that's only half the story. As soon as he made this miraculous catch, he spun around to throw the ball and even fell over because of his momentum going towards the center field wall. Unbelievably, the throw couldn't have been better, preventing Rosen from advancing to second from first and only allowing Doby to reach third base after retreating back to second so he could tag up. The catch not only swung the game in the Giants' favor, but the Series as well, as the Giants would go on to sweep the Indians for the franchise's fifth title.

What a catch! Truly one of the best you'll ever see. Thanks for reading this post and I hope you enjoyed it. Check back soon for more of "all the buzz on what wuzz."