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Willie Lee McCovey (born January 10, 1938 in Mobile, Alabama), nicknamed "Big Mac" and "Stretch", is a former slugger and first baseman in Major League Baseball who played 19 seasons for the San Francisco Giants, and three more for the San Diego Padres and Oakland Athletics, between 1959 and 1980. He batted and threw left-handed.
[edit] Professional career
[edit] San Francisco Giants (1959-73)
In his Major League debut on July 30, 1959, McCovey went four-for-four against Hall-of-Famer Robin Roberts en route to a .354 batting average that year, in which he won National League Rookie of the Year honors while playing in just 52 games.
Three years later, he helped the Giants to the 1962 World Series against the New York Yankees. Perhaps McCovey's best-known moment in baseball came in the bottom of the 9th of Game 7, with 2 outs and the Giants trailing 1-0. With Willie Mays on second base and Matty Alou on third, any base hit would likely have won the championship for the Giants. McCovey scorched a hard line drive that was snared by the Yankees' second baseman Bobby Richardson, ending the series with a Yankees' win. That would turn out to be the closest McCovey would get to playing on a world championship team.
McCovey spent many years at the heart of the Giants' batting order along with fellow Hall-of-Famer Willie Mays. His best year statistically was 1969 when he hit 45 home runs, had 126 RBI and batted .320 to become the National League MVP.
[edit] San Diego Padres and Oakland Athletics (1974-76)
In 1974, McCovey was traded to the San Diego Padres and without him the Giants' fortunes declined. Near the end of the 1976 season, the Oakland Athletics purchased his contract, but he would only play 11 games for them.
[edit] Return to San Francisco (1977-80)
McCovey returned to the Giants in 1977. That year, during a June 27 game against the Cincinnati Reds, he became the first player to hit two home runs in one inning twice in his career (the first was on April 12, 1973). One was a grand slam and he became the first National Leaguer to hit seventeen. At age 39, he had 28 home runs and 86 RBI and was named the Comeback Player of the Year.
On June 30, 1978, at Atlanta's Fulton County Stadium, McCovey hit his 500th home run, and two years later, on May 3 at San Francisco's Candlestick Park, his 521st and last home run, off Scott Sanderson of Montreal. This home run gave McCovey the distinction, along with Ted Williams (with whom he was tied in home runs) of homering in 4 different decades.
In his 22-year career, McCovey batted .270, with 521 home runs and 1,555 RBI, 1,229 runs scored, 2,211 hits, 353 doubles, 46 triples, a .374 on base percentage and a .515 slugging percentage.
[edit] Legacy
McCovey's statue with
AT&T Park in the background
McCovey was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1986. It was his first year of eligibility and he appeared on 346 of 425 ballots cast (81.4 percent). In 1999, he ranked 56th on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Since 1980, the Giants have awarded the Willie Mac Award to honor his spirit and leadership. The inlet of San Francisco Bay just beyond the right field fence of AT&T Park has been dubbed McCovey Cove in his honor. The Giants retired his uniform number 44, which he wore in honor of Hank Aaron, a fellow Mobile, Alabama native.
[edit] Retirement
In 1996, McCovey was sentenced to a fine and two years' probation for tax charges stemming from inadequate reporting of income earned from 1988 to 1990.[1]
In September 2003, McCovey and a business partner opened McCovey's Restaurant, a baseball-themed sports bar and restaurant, located in Walnut Creek, California.
[edit] Pop Culture References
Two months after McCovery's line drive that ended the 1962 World Series, the December 22, 1962 comic strip of Peanuts depicts Charlie Brown and Linus van Pelt brooding silently for three panels, before Charlie Brown finally shouts "Why couldn't McCovey have hit the ball just three feet higher?". The next month, on January 28, 1963, Charlie Brown and Linus are again brooding before Charlie Brown exclaims "Why couldn't McCovey have hit the ball even two feet higher?"
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
Baseball Hall of Fame 
