Maury Wills, Master of the Stolen Base, Is Dead at 89

Wills was a baseball analyst for NBC-TV’s “Game of the Week” during the 1970s.

Taking over a weak team when he was named the Mariners’ manager, he was probably most remembered in Seattle for being suspended for two games after he was caught illegally ordering the team’s groundskeeper to extend the batter’s box by a foot toward the pitcher’s rubber before a game with the Oakland A’s on April 25, 1981. Billy Martin, the A’s manager, believed Wills was trying to give Mariner batters a better chance to connect against his starting pitcher, Rick Langford, before his deliveries broke.

Wills was fired on May 6. He had only a 26-56 record as the Mariners’ manager.

He acknowledged in his memoir, “On the Run: The Never Dull and Often Shocking Life of Maury Wills” (1992), that he struggled with cocaine addiction, but he became sober in the late 1980s. He was later a baserunning instructor for the Dodger organization and for other teams.

Wills had six children with his first wife, Gertrude (Elliot) Wills, whom he married in high school, according to his memoir. He later divorced and married Angela George.

His survivors include his wife, Carla, and his children, Barry, Micki, Bump, Anita and Wendi Jo Wills and Susan Quam. His son Bump was an infielder for the Texas Rangers and Chicago Cubs in the late 1970s and early ’80s.

Though his Dodgers were usually winners, Wills didn’t need to look at the scoreboard to tell when he had fallen short. “I know when I have had a lousy day just by looking down at my uniform,” he told Sports Illustrated in 1965. “If it isn’t dirty, I haven’t scored two runs, I haven’t done my job.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/20/sports/baseball/maury-willis-dead.html