The Most Over-rated "GREAT" Play In Baseball History

First of all - it's a great play in baseball history, but it has become overrated in the sense that all of us don't understand what happened and think that it was some kind of superhuman achievement.

The broadcasters, Jack Brickhouse and Russ Hodges (who called this game for NBC) are responsible for some of the confusion. The "legend" is that Willie Mays caught a fly ball over 460' from the plate and prevented a runner from tagging up and scoring in the '54 World Series. That's not quite what happened.

Game-1, 1954 World Series, Cleveland @ New York Giants. Indians batting, top of 8th in a 2-2 game. First two batters reached base, chasing starter Sal Maglie. Against reliever Don Liddle, Cleveland's Vic Wertz hit a fly ball to DEEP center field; Giants' center fielder Willie Mays ran the ball down, made a "basket catch," wheeled and immediately threw back to the infield.

Larry Doby, the runner on 2nd-base, tagged up and advanced to third. The Indians still had runners on 1st and 3rd with one out, but failed to score in the inning, ultimately leaving the bases loaded; and the Giants' James "Dusty" Rhodes ended up winning the game with a walkoff home run off Bob Lemon in the bottom of the tenth.

The Indians, who won a then-AL record 111 games in the regular season, ended up getting swept out of a World Series they were heavily favored to win.

Here is an excerpt of the broadcast on NBC: longtime Cubs / WGN announcer Jack Brickhouse was doing the play-by-play with regular Giants' broadcaster Russ Hodges with him in the booth.

BRICKHOUSE: there's a long drive, way back in center field, way back, back, it's caught by Willie Mays! The runner on 2nd, Doby, is able to tag and go to 3rd; Willie Mays just brought this crowd to its feet with a catch, which must have been an optical illusion to a lot of people.

Boy! Notice where that 483 foot mark is in center field? The ball itself ...
Russ, we know this ballpark better than anyone else ... had to go about 460, didn't it?

HODGES: It certainly did, and we don't know how Willie did it, but he's been doing it all year.

Willie Mays Incredible catch

As Jack Brickhouse noted, there was a "483" sign in center field at the Polo Grounds, but it was in a little "notch" in dead center.

Wertz' fly ball wasn't hit to dead center and wasn't hit into the notch; it probably went 415-420 feet.

This is a fly ball to the warning track in Detroit (Comerica Park) and San Francisco (Oracle Park); and this is about where "the triangle" is in Fenway, so we don't think it's a home run there either.