The Catch (baseball)

The Catch refers to a memorable defensive baseball play by Willie Mays on September 29, by|1954, during Game 1 of the 1954 World Series between the New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians at the Polo Grounds in New York. The score was tied 2-2 in the top of the eighth inning. Starting pitcher Sal Maglie walked Larry Doby and gave up a single to Al Rosen. With runners on first and second, Giants manager Leo Durocher summoned left-handed relief pitcher Don Liddle to replace Maglie and pitch to Cleveland's Vic Wertz, also a left-hander.

Wertz worked the count to two balls and a strike before crushing Liddle's fourth pitch to deep center field. Some reports say the ball traveled 450 feet, which is an exaggeration, but in many stadiums the shot would have been a home run and given the Indians a 5-2 lead. However, this was the spacious Polo Grounds, and Giants center fielder Willie Mays, who was playing in shallow center field, made an on-the-run over-the-shoulder catch (looking like a wide receiver) to make the out. Having caught the ball, he immediately spun and threw the ball, losing his hat in characteristic style. Doby, the runner on second, might have been able to score the go-ahead run had he tagged at the moment the ball was caught; but as it was, he ran when the ball was hit, and then had to scramble back to retag and only got as far as third base. Liddle was then relieved by Marv Grissom, to whom he supposedly remarked "Well, I got "my" man!"

Broadcast

Jack Brickhouse was calling the game along with Russ Hodges on NBC Television. The audio has appeared on CD in the book "And the Fans Roared" and also as accompaniment to the World Series film, as with a Youtube item. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dK6zPbkFnE]

*"There's a long drive waaay back in center field...waaay baaack, baaack, it is...caaaaaught by Wil-lie Mays!" [garbled - some say it sounds like "Say-Hey Mays"] [pause for crowd noise] "The runner on second, Doby, is able to tag and go to third; Wille Mays just brought this crowd to its feet... with a catch... which must have been an optical illusion to a lot of people. Boy!" [pause] "See where that 483 foot mark is in center field? The ball itself... Russ, you know this ballpark better than anyone else I know... had to go about 460, didn't it?"
*"It certainly did, and I don't know how Willie did it, but he's been doing it all year."

There is some question of the deep center field distance. Sometimes there was a 475 sign in center field, sometimes 483. The ballpark was demolished in 1964, and it is unclear what was being measured when. One theory (as posed in "Mysteries within Green Cathedrals", a SABR article by Phil Lowry) is that the 475 was the distance to the monument and the 483 was to the clubhouse overhang. Either way, the center field corners were well under 460.

Aftermath and response

, in which he had to scurry back so fast he did not have time to turn around. Other observers have noted that Mays' quick relay throw from deep center field was the most important part of the 1954 play, the catch itself being merely a matter of Mays outrunning the ball.

In 2006, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign physicist Dr. Alan Nathan found that if the weather had been one degree warmer on the day of The Catch, it would not have happened. If the temperature had been 77 degrees Fahrenheit rather than 76, the ball would have traveled two more inches, just enough to bounce off the edge of Mays' glove. Nathan said, "This is the ultimate proof of the old adage that 'baseball is a game of inches."cite news | title = Engineering in the News March 2007 | date = 2007-03-12 | url = http://www.engr.uiuc.edu/news/archive/index.php?xId=070208640700 | publisher = "Sports Illustrated" | accessdate = 2007-07-31 ]

However, the actual film footage shows that Mays "watched" the ball into his glove, thus the U of I physicist's basic assumption, that Mays just barely caught up to the ball, is undermined. Mays is seen running and also watching the flight of the ball over his left shoulder (a fact also described in the Arnold Hano book, "A Day in the Bleachers"). As the ball is coming down, Mays veers just a little bit to his right, then reaches towards his left at the last second to catch the ball, which may be why viewers of "only the still photos" think that he just barely caught up to it. Immediately after catching the ball, as he turns he works to get a grip on the ball, then throws as hard as he can, using an underarmed motion to release the ball as quickly as possible from the way he caught it, then spins around and falls from his own momentum.

ee also

*Immaculate Reception
*The Catch (American football)
*Hand of God goal
*The Drive
*The Flip
*The Shot
*The Fumble
*Shot Heard 'Round the World (baseball)
*The Play
*The Tackle
*Ball of the Century

References

Further sources

*Shortly after the 1954 Series, Arnold Hano wrote a book called "A Day in the Bleachers", describing the game from his vantage point in the Polo Grounds cheap seats. He devoted an entire chapter to The Catch (and The Throw that followed it), describing everything that was going on in his head and in the stadium as the ball traversed its high arc from far away at home plate to near where the writer sat. At first, it looked like an easy catch; then, as Mays continued his full-tilt sprint, the writer became certain it was going to be over his head; then he became equally certain that Mays would outrun it: "For the second time, I knew Mays would make the catch." That fascinating and unique chapter was reproduced in one entry in "The Fireside Book of Baseball" series, along with an abridged collection of that series called "The Baseball Reader". Hano would also go on to write a biography of Willie Mays along with his other books on sports figures and events. The 1954 book was reissued in a 50th anniversary edition in 2004.
*A book called "The Fans Roared", published in 2000, contains an audio capture of this play as described by World Series TV announcer Jack Brickhouse along with regular Giants announcer Russ Hodges. Brick is a little hard to hear over the screams of the crowd at the moment of the catch, but shortly afterward as the crowd settled down he said, "Willie Mays just brought this crowd to its feet with a catch that must have looked like "an optical illusion" to a lot of people!" He would go on to use that expression in the World Series film of this classic sports moment.

External links

* [http://www.time.com/time/2003/worldseries/moments/7.html "TIME"'s World Series Memorable Moment #7: The Catch]
* [http://www.sportingnews.com/baseball/25moments/9.html "The Sporting News"'s 25 Greatest Moments in Baseball #9: The Catch]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dK6zPbkFnE The catch on youtube]