[mlbvideo id=”33505693″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]
Dee Gordon, 2B
Hanley Ramirez, SS
Yasiel Puig, RF
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Matt Kemp, LF
Andre Ethier, CF
Justin Turner, 3B
Tim Federowicz, C
Zack Greinke, P
By Jon Weisman
Dee Gordon is on pace for 93 steals and has an outside shot at Maury Wills’ team record of 104, but Wills ended up with an edge that Gordon won’t have.
Because the Dodgers played in a three-game playoff with the Giants that counted in the 1962 NL regular-season standings – and because Wills was an iron man that year – Wills played in 165 games in his record-setting season.
Wills stole four bases in those extra three games, with three of the steals coming in game 165, when he went 4 for 5 in the Dodgers’ ill-fated, thank-goodness-Twitter-didn’t-exist, 6-4 loss to San Francisco.
Wills scored the Dodgers’ final run of 1962 in classic fashion: he singled to left, stole second, stole third and came home on a throwing error by Giants catcher Ed Bailey.
That gave the Dodgers a 4-2 lead, which they took to the ninth before they allowed four crushing runs.
Wills, who started 164 games and played all but 44 1/3 innings of that 1962 season, stole 104 bases on 208 hits and 51 walks, meaning he stole bases about 40 percent of the time he reached base. Gordon, who has sat out five games this season, has stolen 36 bases on 66 hits and 17 walks, or about 43 percent of the time he has reached.
Of course, it’s harder to steal when you get triples, as Gordon got a pair of in Friday’s 7-2 victory over Colorado. The first Dodger with two triples in a game since Rafael Furcal in 2010, Gordon now has six to lead the National League. No Dodger has led the NL in triples since Brett Butler tied for the league lead in strike-shortened 1994 with nine, and no Dodger has won the league triples title outright since Willie Davis in 1970 with 16 (four more than any other Los Angeles Dodger ever).
Wills tied for the NL lead in 1962 with 10 triples.
jaymanne
The photo is from the 1963 Dodgers Yearbook… Wills broke Ty Cobbs season stolen base record that ’62 season and was the league MVP. There was something else that made Maury so lethal… hitting behind him in the 3-slot was one Tommy Davis who was perhaps THE best hitter in baseball over a two year span. Thanks to Wills mostly, Tommy drove in 154 runs that season which held up as the most RBI’s in a season for over 20 years. That last playoff game, If I am not mistaken, Stan Williams walked in the tying AND go-ahead run for the Giants in one of the worst chokes by a relief pitcher in modern baseball history.
oldbrooklynfan
I was in Schofield Barracks in Hawaii as a PFC in the US Army when I watched the ’62 playoffs with the Giants. That one and the one in ’51 were two of my worst moments as a Dodger fan.
allvetmedcom
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