From the NYT:<p>This day in history<p>1954: New York Giants centerfielder Willie Mays made a running catch with his back to home plate on a 450-foot blast by Cleveland Indians batter Vic Wertz in the opening game of the World Series. It is widely considered to be the greatest catch ever made.<p>Best one I ever saw was by Ron Swoboda in the sixth game of the '69 Series. Mays himself said the Wertz catch wasn't nearly as tough as it looked, and Mays was not known for his modesty.

I'm sure there have been a number of catches that were just as difficult as Mays's. Think of all the highlights you've seen over the years. Of course, not all were as dramatic or as important.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Oeditpus Rex:
From the NYT:<p>This day in history<p>1954: New York Giants centerfielder Willie Mays made a running catch with his back to home plate on a 450-foot blast by Cleveland Indians batter Vic Wertz in the opening game of the World Series. It is widely considered to be the greatest catch ever made.<p>Best one I ever saw was by Ron Swoboda in the sixth game of the '69 Series. Mays himself said the Wertz catch wasn't nearly as tough as it looked, and Mays was not known for his modesty.<hr></blockquote><p>
Oed, didn't the late Tommie Agee make a couple of tremendous catches in that Series too--one running from center to left and the other running from center to right?<p>[ October 01, 2004: Message edited by: wordygurdy ]</p>

Yeah, he did -- amazin' (heh) catches, and probably tougher. I'm going to contradict my earlier post now, but Swoboda's looked tougher because he was in a full-out dive. Agee's probably were tougher, though -- the first one because he was running parallel to the fence and had to avoid Cleon Jones (he more or less jumped over him, if I'm remembering right) and the second one because either he misjudged it or the ball did something weird and he ended up catching it about a foot off the ground.<p>Of course, what made these catches "greater" was their venue. You get Brooks Robinson throwing somebody out from the third-base coach's box in July and maybe a few thousand people remember it. But he did it on a World Series stage, so it's the stuff of legend.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Oeditpus Rex:
Of course, what made these catches "greater" was their venue. You get Brooks Robinson throwing somebody out from the third-base coach's box in July and maybe a few thousand people remember it. But he did it on a World Series stage, so it's the stuff of legend.<hr></blockquote><p>I agree. It's interesting that Mays downplayed his catch, though I think I recall seeing similar comments from him. Maybe it seemed easy to *him,* but to *me* it remains incredible. He had to run almost 50 yards or more to even get to the ball. He caught it with his back to the infield and whirled and threw a perfect strike to second base to keep the runner there from tagging up--I think people forget that aspect of the play, which they shouldn't. <p>Did you happen to see George Vecsey's column the other day about Mays' catch? It was touching and poetic. I'll post it next. A caveat: Don't read it if you don't want the myth about Don Liddle's uttering the line "I got my man" shattered.

SPORTS OF THE TIMES
Hazy Sunshine, Vivid Memory
By GEORGE VECSEY<p>Published: September 29, 2004<p>FIFTY years ago today, Willie Mays made one of the
great catches in the history of the World Series,
tracking down a rocket hit by Vic Wertz to deepest
right-center field of an eccentric oval known as the
Polo Grounds.<p>Mays followed it up by making one of the great throws
in the history of the World Series, a scorching
missile directly to second base that minimized damage
on the basepaths.<p>It is hard to imagine the World Series being held in
the sweet hazy sunshine of late September rather than
the sour night air of late October, but that is
precisely what has transpired in baseball over the
past 50 years, a deterioration from light to darkness.<p>The catch was not witnessed by Don Liddle, the
left-handed relief pitcher who had been brought in to
subdue Wertz. After throwing exactly one pitch, Liddle
was scrambling to a defensive no-man's-land, midway
between third base and home.<p>The catch was also not witnessed by Liddle's
6-year-old son, Craig, who was in the family's rented
home in Westchester County. Craig Liddle, however,
gets to provide the delightful little coda to this
story, down below.<p>Fortunately, the catch was witnessed by Arnold Hano,
an accomplished freelance writer and Giants fan, who
had gotten up that morning in New York and decided to
attend the game. Hano started off merely jotting down
hieroglyphics on his scorecard, but he became so
fascinated (long before Mays's catch) that he began
scribbling notes in the margins of his New York Times.<p>After Mays's eighth-inning catch, the New York Giants
went on to defeat the Cleveland Indians, 5-2, on Dusty
Rhodes's three-run homer in the 10th inning. Hano went
back to his apartment and began typing while the
Giants beat Cleveland in four straight, the last game
on Oct. 2, 1954.<p>The result was a book - ''A Day in the Bleachers" -
first published in 1955, recently reissued by Da Capo
Press of Cambridge, Mass.<p>The slim paperback (192 pages) is as delightful as a
World Series game in the sweet hazy sunshine of late
September.<p>"Then I looked at Willie, and alarm raced through me,
peril flaring against my heart," Hano writes,
recalling his perch, more than 500 feet from home
plate.<p>"To my utter astonishment, the young Giant center
fielder - the inimitable Mays, most skilled of
outfielders, unique for his ability to scent the
length and direction of any drive and then turn and
move to the final destination of the ball - Mays was
turned full around, head down, running as hard as he
could, straight toward the runway between the two
bleacher sections.<p>"I knew then that I had underestimated - badly
underestimated - the length of Wertz's blow." The
writing remains urgent, 50 years later.<p>After a dignified career as a writer, Hano, along with
his wife, Bonnie, volunteered for the Peace Corps and
helped rebuild a schoolhouse in rural Costa Rica. They
now live in Laguna Beach, Calif.<p>The new edition catches us up on the lives (and
deaths) of the key New York and Cleveland players. It
also informs us that the glove used by 23-year-old
Willie Mays is now in the Baseball Hall of Fame in
Cooperstown, N.Y., courtesy of the Liddle family.<p>In a telephone interview, Craig Liddle, a science
teacher in Salem, Ill., told me more about Willie's
glove. The next summer, 1955, the two Liddles were
sitting on the Giants' charter flight. The son was
doing what he thought was normal for any young boy -
pestering Mays and Ruben Gomez in the seats in front
of him.<p>To distract him, the father reminded the son that he
would soon be playing Little League baseball. The boy
chimed in that he needed a glove. The father told him
not to worry, that he would get a glove.<p>A few days later, the Giants were in St. Louis. Willie
Mays went up to Craig Liddle and said, "You're going
to need this," and he handed the boy a man-sized,
well-worn glove. Mays said he had used it the previous
season but had now broken in a new gamer.<p>"Take good care of this, and it will take care of
you," Mays told the boy.<p>After a few years of Little League ("and leaving it
out in the rain"), Craig Liddle and his father
remembered that this was the glove that had caught Vic
Wertz's booming drive. "It went into the closet,"
Liddle said. Ten years ago, the family lent it to the
Hall, because "that was where we all believe it should
be," the son said the other day. Don Liddle died of
cancer in 2000, at age 75.<p>"My dad and Willie stayed in touch," Craig Liddle
said. "They would send Christmas cards, call each
other." He said that Giants team was close, the way
baseball used to be. He reveres Mays, Whitey Lockman,
Don Mueller, Monte Irvin and other living teammates of
his dad.<p>One aspect of that World Series game still bothers
Craig Liddle. Legend has it that his father, after
being replaced in the basic lefty-righty switch after
the Wertz drive, walked into the dugout and
proclaimed, "I got my man." Never happened that way.<p>"Not in front of Leo the Lip," the son said of Leo
Durocher, the hard-boiled Giants manager. "My dad
heard people tell this story on television. You would
never say something like that while the game was still
on."<p>The son added, however, that after Rhodes's home run
sent them all to the clubhouse, Durocher did walk over
to shake the hand of his bubbly protégé for the
extraordinary catch and throw. Don Liddle, the
29-year-old journeyman, who dressed in the locker next
to Mays, spotted Leo the Lip's extended hand and shook
it.<p>"My dad told Leo, 'I got my guy,' " the son said. "But
this was after the game, not during it."<p>Craig Liddle respects his father's game so much that
the family never thought of selling the glove Willie
Mays gave him. In a world of mercenaries who flail
kayak paddles to get to Barry Bonds's home run balls,
Craig Liddle is a throwback to a sweet time, when the
World Series was played in the afternoon haze of late
September.

It's tough to tell from watching television whether a catch truly is great--especially if you factor in that a great play begins with proper positioning, a jump on the ball that begins with the batter's stride, and all else that goes into covering a lot of ground in the outfield before ever touching the ball. <p>Often, what a highlight show calls a great catch is an instance of an outfielder making a desperate dive for a ball that should have been an easy play. That's not great.<p>Swoboda was a good hitter but lousy fielder who came up with the ball in the clutch during a great World Series. Agee was a very good all-around player with excellent range in centerfield. <p>Not many players could have made the Wertz catch, if for no other reason that almost no one could cover so much ground, then see the ball over their shoulder. I'm glad to see mention of the throw--the famous clip shows Mays spinning to get rid of the ball incredibly quickly after that sprint, but not how quickly the ball got to second base. <p>As has been discussed here before, many believe Mays was the greatest all-around player. He made great plays routinely.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Wayne Countryman:
Swoboda was a good hitter but lousy fielder who came up with the ball in the clutch during a great World Series.<hr></blockquote>I think that's part of what made his catch so great. Nobody expected it of him.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="TImes, TimesNR, serif">quote:</font><hr>As has been discussed here before, many believe Mays was the greatest all-around player. He made great plays routinely.<hr></blockquote>He gets my vote, and I'll tell you why: Mays in a slump could still beat you with his glove. Mays in a slump and with no significant chances in the field could still draw a walk and beat you on the bases. Mays not even in the lineup could still beat you with a pinch-hit. With the possible exception of Roberto Clemente, I can't think of anybody else who had all those weapons.