Willie Mays in Philadelphia: The notable moments here, from his MLB debut to one last curtain call

Willie Mays recalled in his autobiography that the phone conversation between him and the New York Giants’ fiery manager Leo Durocher in 1951 was brief and salty. Mays was a playful, timid superstar at a time when being a Black athlete often was harrowing.

Mays was having fun in Minneapolis tearing up triple-A pitching. The Giants had a game coming up against the Phillies and they wanted his help. Mays wasn’t so sure.

Here’s how the chat with Durocher went according to Mays’ book, which was written with author Lou Sahadi:

I said to Leo, “I’m not coming.”

He screamed at me for two minutes, starting with “What the hell do you mean you’re not coming?”

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When he was finished I told him I wasn’t ready for the majors yet. I admitted I was scared and I didn’t think I could hit big-league pitching.

“What are you hitting now?” he asked.

I told him, “.477.”

“Well,” he asked, barely containing his anger, “do you think you can hit .2-[bleeping]55 for me?”

“Sure,” I told him. That didn’t seem too hard.

“Then get down here on the next plane,” he said. “We’re playing in Philadelphia tonight and I want you there.”

And he hung up.

Mays had little choice but to hustle to Philly to start his glorious career. In light of his death on Tuesday at the age of 93, here are some of his notable games here.

Mays made his reluctant major league debut for the Giants on May 25, 1951, at Shibe Park at 21st and Lehigh in North Philadelphia. He went 0-for-5 that night, but — as Inquirer Phillies writer Stan Baumgartner pointed out — was robbed twice of hits on excellent defensive plays by Phils outfielders Del Ennis and Dick Sisler.

Mays went 0-for-12 in the series and longed for Minneapolis. But Durocher and the Giants hung with him and he went on to win National League Rookie of the Year, batting .274 with 20 home runs and 68 RBIs in 121 games.

Richie Ashburn beat out Mays (and Stan Musial) for the 1958 National League batting title and it always agitated Mays, who was trying to win over his new fans following the Giants’ relocation to San Francisco. Mays insisted that Ashburn bunted for four hits on the final day of the season to edge Mays .350 to .347. But Ashburn had three hits that day, and all were swing-away singles.

“If he wants to remember things the way he does, that’s fine,” Ashburn said before his Hall of Fame induction in 1995. “Bunting certainly helped me win that batting title, but it didn’t help me the last day.”

Fun fact: Mays hit 29 home runs in 1958. Ashburn hit 29 total in his 15-year career.

Mays played in 14 games in Philadelphia before hitting his first home run in front of Phillies fans.

In true showman style, Mays actually hit two home runs that day off Murry Dickson. The second was a blast that landed on the roof of the left-field bleachers, and held up as the game-winning run. Mays also threw out Earl Torgeson as he tried to score on a sacrifice fly earlier in the game.

Mays had gone 61 plate appearances before breaking through. The numerologists will love this. He hit 61 of his 660 career home runs against the Phillies.

Mays hit three triples, including one that was described as a 440-footer over the head of Bobby Del Greco in the cavernous center field of Shibe Park, which now was named Connie Mack Stadium. Mays also had a pair of singles.

Mays homered three times and had a single in the opener of a twi-night doubleheader — back when such things were common. His first two bombs came off Dallas Green, his third was the game-winner in the top of the 10th inning off Frank Sullivan.

“Willie Mays showed 14,997 fans at Connie Mack Stadium why he is the highest paid and generally acknowledged as the best all-around player in the game [last] night,” observed the Inquirer’s Allen Lewis, a Hall of Famer himself.

Mays doubled and tripled in the second game of the doubleheader and threw Tony Taylor out at the plate with a rocket from center field. Mays also walked in Game 2 on a borderline pitch that led to frustrated fans throwing beer cans and other debris onto the field. Police made several arrests.

“I hit for the cycle,” Mays cracked afterward. “That’s the best series I’ve ever had in this town. … I think I’ll ask for a raise.”

Mays had grown so beloved that the Phillies — led by former rival Ashburn — presented him with a cake to celebrate his 41st birthday on May 6, 1972. He was intentionally walked by manager Frank Lucchesi in his only plate appearance that day.

“This is a pleasant surprise,” said Mays, who was hitting .167 and would be traded to the Mets on May 11. “... The way I’ve been going, I wasn’t expecting anything.”

A couple of weeks later on May 21, he slammed his final home run in Philadelphia: a two-run shot in the eighth inning that gave the Mets the 4-3 win. He hit it off Steve Carlton, who had probably the greatest pitching season in Phillies history that year.

Mays went 0-for-4 with a couple of strikeouts by Ken Brett in a loss to the Phillies on June 18, 1973. It was his 178th and final game against the Phillies, and exactly 51 years before the day he died. Rookie third baseman Mike Schmidt batted sixth that day. Schmidt, then 23, did not have any defensive plays on Mays, but second-year left fielder Greg Luzinski recorded Mays’ final out.

Mays had been a .297 hitter against the Phils but was just 6-for-36 in the 13 games he played at Veterans Stadium in his final two seasons. In all, he hit .290 with 20 home runs in Philadelphia.

It was the 15th anniversary of the torturous 1964 season when the Phillies captured hearts with a blistering start and broke them with a disastrous September.

An old-timers game was held in August 1979 pitting members of the ‘64 Phillies against a group of contemporaries. Willie Mays, then 48, made the play of the game when he made an over-the-shoulder catch of a ball hit to center field by Johnny Briggs.

“Maybe he couldn’t have thrown a runner out at home,” The Inquirer’s Al Morganti wrote in a loose reference to the famous play in the 1954 World Series, “but Willie Mays can still play the game.”