Re: Bracket-bustin' MLB Baseball Trivia -
Mick - 03-22-2018
(03-22-2018, 12:08 AM)Spiny_Norman link Wrote: [quote author=Phogge link=topic=18886.msg226477#msg226477 date=1521685530]
Dont know if he played left but Dale Murphy?
Just needed to be an outfielder. Dale Murphy (we called him the Stormin' Mormon) won back to back in 1983 and 1984. So the outfielders are Mantle, Maris and Murphy. All Ms but not Mays.
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Mays just had the two MVPs, 1954 and 1965. He finished in the top six MVP balloting for 11 years. Biggest travesty, IMHO, was 1962, the last year before 1989 that the Giants won the pennant. It was the year that Maury Wills won. He had 104 stolen bases. He got 209 points in the voting, Mays got 202.
Each scored 130 runs, but Wills had 74 more plate appearances and batted leadoff while Mays batted third. Here's their stat lines:
Mays .304/.384/.615/.999 10.5 WAR
Wills .299/.347/.373/.720  5.9 WAR (same WAR as AL winner Mickey Mantle)
Wills led the league in games played, plate appearances, at bats, triples, stolen bases and caught stealing. Mays led the league in home runs and total bases.
Re: Bracket-bustin' MLB Baseball Trivia -
Phogge - 03-22-2018
The Giants were fearful of Wills on the bases so Alvin Dark had head groundskeeper Matty Schwab create a swamp around first base by watering extensively and add sand to the area in a mid summer series with the Dodgers.
Dodger coach Leo Durocher complained to ump Tom Gorman who ordered the groundskeepers to fix the mess. The crew came out and basically added more sand to the mixture and watered again. The LA press went crazy and the team appealed to the league office. Sure enough, the teams tied for the pennant and the NL league office had chief ump Jocko Conlan supervise the groundskeeping for Game One at Candlestick. Schwabs crew adroitly created an invisible swamp and the Dodgers stole no bases in an 11-2 Giant win.