Blast from the Past: Mueller and Mays 1954

The main thing most baseball and even Giants fans know about the 1954 season is The Catch and the Giants sweeping a favored Indians team in the World Series.  There was more to the Giants 1954 season than The Catch though. By 1954 many of the stars from the 1951 team such as Al Dark, Monte Irvin, Wes Westrum, Whitey Lockman, Larry Jansen and Sal Maglie were still around but on the downside of their careers.  Johnny Antonelli(LHP) RIP, who we've already profiled, was an addition who had a career year on the pitching side.  Don Mueller and Willie Mays were also holdovers from 1951 but were now the stars of the team and a fascinating subplot to the season was their race for the batting title.

Don Mueller was the son of Walter, a reserve OF for the Pirates.  Walter taught young Don how to hit by pitching corn kernels which he swung at with a broomstick.  As a result, he developed tremendous eye-hand coordination and bat-to-ball skills.  He became the ultimate contact hitter albeit with virtually no power.  Sportswriters were impressed by his seeming ability to punch groundballs through holes in the infield and dubbed him Mandrake the Magician, and I have no idea where that name came from or what it meant.  Unfortunately, this seemingly unique ability was a mirage of BABIP luck.  Mueller almost never struck out, but he also almost never walked making him uniquely BABIP dependent which is why his career ebbed and flowed with his BABIP luck.

Willie Mays was Willie Mays.  He was already a star from the spark he gave the Giants in 1951.  He was coming back from a 2 year hiatus in the army and big expectations awaited him in New York.  I've read that Giants Manager Leo Durocher made up a song to the tune of Take Me Out To The Ballgame counting down the number of days Willie had left in the army and when the Giants would have him back.  There was no comparison between Mays and Mueller's overall production at the plate.  Mays not only hit for average, he hit for power.  He struck out a lot more than Mueller but he also drew a whole lot more walks giving him strong OBP's too.

Willie Mays had an MVP season in 1954 leading the league in BA, triples, SLG% and OPS.  Mueller's campaign paled in comparison except for BA.  He and Willie staged a season long friendly battle for the highest BA, AKA Batting Title.  Mueller outhit Willie for the first 3 months of the season with BA's of .306, .391 and .353 to Willie's .254, .374 and .314.  On May 2 in a doubleheader,  Mueller went 5 for 5 in game 2 with a double and triple a feat which was overshadowed when Stan Musial became the first major leaguer to hit 5 HR's in one day.  Mueller hit for the cycle on July 1, but July was his only month with BA under .300 at .297. He followed that up with .318 in August.  Meanwhile, Willie Mays hit .330 in July and .385 in August to take the lead in the batting race.  They came down to the final day of the regular season tied.  Mueller went 2 for 6 while Mays went 3 for 4 to win it with a .345 BA to Mueller's .342.  Mueller finished with the most hits at 212.  Don Mueller hit .389 in the World Series with 7 singles in 18 AB  while Mays hit .289, but The Catch will be what fans will alway remember about the 1954 World Series.

*Biographical information for this post found in Don Mueller's SABR biography and stats are taken from Baseball Reference.