Chattanooga Lookouts shortstop Dee Gordon stole 73 bases last year to lead the Midwest League, but that doesn’t begin to touch what Maury Wills accomplished in 1962.
Wills became the first player in the major leagues to steal 100 bases when he swiped 104 for the Los Angeles Dodgers 48 summers ago. Now a Dodgers instructor focusing on bunting and baserunning, he spent the past three nights at AT&T Field working with the Lookouts, but primarily with Gordon.
“There are people in Los Angeles saying Dee Gordon could be the shortstop in Los Angeles next year,” Wills said Saturday. “He’s got talent. God was good to him. What really impresses me is that he still says ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘No, sir.’ I don’t take that stuff for granted, because I say it too.
“I was raised in the ’40s, and it was a little different back then.”
The Lookouts (13-16) scored twice Saturday night in the eighth inning, benefiting from two Mobile errors, but it wasn’t enough in a 6-2 loss to the BayBears.
Wills amassed 2,134 hits and 586 steals in the majors from 1959 to ’72, and he led the National League in steals six straight seasons beginning the ’60s. Now 77, the former shortstop has bonded with the 22-year-old Gordon, who refers to Wills as “Uncle Maury.”
“It’s unbelievable how much wisdom he has,” Gordon said. “I don’t even know where to start. It’s every aspect, from bunting to defense to baserunning to leadership.”
Though he hasn’t altered his methods of teaching, Wills said a lot has changed in how players try to steal. He laughs at those who believe in a “first move,” when a runner decides what to do based on the first move a pitcher makes.
Wills wants Gordon stealing eight bases in every 10 attempts, and Gordon isn’t far from that (38-of-51, 74.5 percent).
“You get eight of 10 and you’re in the category of Rickey Henderson, Lou Brock, Vince Coleman, Davey Lopes, Maury Wills and a few others, but none of this ‘first move,'” Wills said. “A first move is for guys who can’t run fast and are guessing. I don’t want you to key on a pitcher and then go. I want you to go.
“You cannot be a good baseball player and be afraid that you might make a mistake. The man who doesn’t make any mistakes is the man who is not doing anything. If you’re going to be wrong, be decisively wrong. You have to trust what you think you see.”
Wills has been in Chattanooga for the first time since 1953, when he and Jackie Robinson played at Engel Stadium on a barnstorming tour. Engel was Wills’ only local stop that trip, but he visited the IMAX Theater and other attractions this time around.
“This is a fabulous town,” Wills said. “The people are nice. Then I started to look in the newspaper and saw what prices were like, and I was like, ‘Wow! We pay through the nose out there in California.’
“I’d move here in a second if I wasn’t connected to Los Angeles at both hips.”