Orlando Cepeda’s third homer in three days and Felipe Alou’s run-scoring hit in the 9th, give the Giants a 6 – 5 win over the Braves. San Francisco now leads the Braves by a half game.
June 5, 1958 – Willie Mays tries to score, however, he’s thrown out by a beautiful throw from Hank Aaron to Del Crandall. Orlando Cepeda who is watching closely, would win the game a few minutes later. This game was played at Seals Stadium.
Bypassing the customary Willie Mays-Roberto Clemente on-field rivalry, Willie plays directly to Roberto’s constituents as he makes his bid for the Nobel Peace Prize. Bob Stevens of the San Francisco Chronicle explains: “The second largest crowd in Forbes Field history, 35,797 booing partisan fans, saw cool Willie Mays stop a free-for-all in the opening game. Even in the lair of the Pirates and despite their double defeat, Mays was the hero of the hour. In the middle of a player melee precipitated by a recurrence of a beanball feud that first broke out when Pittsburgh visited San Francisco, Willie tackled a near-berserk Orlando Cepeda to keep him from causing havoc with a bat.” The mêlée stems from a May 7th meeting between the teams and culminates in today’s 5th inning free-for-all with Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh charging P Ruben Gomez and being fended off by the Giant headhunter, now taking his turn at bat. Understandably concerned is Gomez’s fellow Puerto Rican. Stevens continues: “Among the first to his Puerto Rican countryman’s aid was 200-pounder Cepeda, eyes flashing and fists swinging at anything in sight in his lunge to get at Murtaugh. Unable to reach his immediate objective, Cepeda broke free from the milling athletes and picked up the lead-filled bat the batters swing to loosen up before going to the plate. He barely got a hand on it when from nowhere came Mays, head down and charging as hard as he could. Willie slammed into his first baseman, flattened him and pinned him until other players could help restrain the maddened Cepeda in his quest for blood. With Orlando subdued, the abortive riot broke up and Murtaugh was sent to the showers. No Giants were tossed from the contest, even though many people figured that they started the war May 7 in San Francisco when Curt Raydon and Marv Grissom began head-hunting. Mays was given a tremendous hand by the filled stands…”
On May 13, 1958, Willie Mays and Daryl Spencer of the San Francisco Giants each hit two home runs and combine for 28 total bases in a 16-9 rout of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Mays’ five hits help the Giants set a modern day NL record of 50 total bases in a game.
Teammates Willie Mays and Daryl Spencer each have four extra-base hits as San Francisco beats the Dodgers in Los Angeles, 16 – 9. Mays hits two home runs, two triples, a single and drives in four runs, and Spencer has two home runs, a triple, a double and six RBI for a combined 28 total bases.
Commemorating the three-year anniversary of his party-crashing heroics, Roberto Clemente again disrupts Willie Mays’s birthday celebration, if not quite so dramatically. Bob Stevens of the San Francisco Chronicle reports: “Only a spectacular catch by Clemente on a 400-foot blast by Mays in the 6th with the bases loaded and George Witt on the mound prevented San Francisco from making a genuine rout of the thing.” Circus catch notwithstanding, the Bucs’ bats fail to ignite as they suffer a 7 – 0 whitewashing.
On January 6, 1958, Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants signs a contract worth $65,000. It’s the largest deal ever signed by a member of the Giants.
The Brooklyn Sports Authority gets an engineering report on a 50,000-seat stadium in the downtown area. It will cost an estimated $20.7 million, including the land site. Indications are that there will be trouble finding a market for the bond issue.
On June 28, 1957, Commissioner Ford Frick replaces three Cincinnati Reds on the National League’s All-Star team. Frick names Stan Musial, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron to replace Cincinnati’s Gus Bell, George Crowe and Wally Post in the starting lineup. Cincinnati fans had stuffed the ballot box, electing eight Reds to the All-Star Game starting…
Forbes Field’s vast centerfield expanse provides the setting for one of Willie Mays’ greatest catches, coming at the expense of his young friend, admirer, protégé and rival, Roberto Clemente. Clemente hits a ball that seems headed towards a light tower in left center. The New York Times’s Roscoe McGowen recounts what happens next: “In the 1st inning, with two Pirates on base and one out, Roberto Clemente whacked a terrific drive toward the screen surrounding the light tower in left center field, more than 440 feet from home plate. Willie astonished the players, as well as the fans, by leaping high against the screen and making a glove-twisting catch. Most observers thought the ball had bounced off the screen.” Clemente then almost compounds his misfortune the following inning: “Clemente got into the catching act in the Giants’ 2nd inning. Going almost to the wall for Daryl Spencer’s long drive, Roberto saw the ball bounce out of his glove as he was making one of his ‘basket catches.’ But he snared the ball before it could drop to the ground.”
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