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the angels & mlb remember

Upon successfully acquiring the Giants in 1993, runs. A few of the most notable:
he stepped down from his role as CEO at Safe- • 1959 National League Rookie of Year
way, while remaining chairman, to lead the Gi-
ants as its president and managing general part- • 1969 National League Most Valuable Player
ner. One of his first appointments was signing • 1977 National League Comeback Player of the
Barry Bonds to a $43.7 million contract which, at Year
the time, was the largest Major League Baseball
contract. Bonds went on to shatter MLB’s career • 18 grand slams, most in National League
home run record and, in the process, garnered history
three MVP awards. • Six-time All-Star
During his tenure, the Giants reached the play- The Giants honored McCovey in many ways.
in memoriam
offs four times and reached the World Series They retired his No. 44 in 1980, his final sea-
for the first time in San Francisco in 2002, only son. That year the team also established the
to lose to the Angels in a dramatic seven-game Willie Mac Award, a de facto most inspirational
series. player award, coveted by San Francisco players
The storied history of the Giants franchise was because of McCovey’s history and the fact that
also an important touchstone for Magowan, who the honoree is selected by teammates. When
returned beloved former Giants, such as Hall of the team moved into the ballpark at China Basin
Famers Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda, back in 2000, the name McCovey Cove — an idea of
to the team by signing them to lifetime special sportswriters Mark Purdy and Leonard Koppett
advisor contracts. — quickly took hold. As the thinking went, if the
left-handed McCovey had played in that ballpark,
Under his leadership, the Giants, in 1994, were he would have deposited dozens of balls into the
the nation’s first professional sports team to raise water beyond the right-field fence.
funds and awareness in the fight against HIV/
AIDS by launching a special event game, “Until Then in 2003, the Giants unveiled a monument
to McCovey at China Basin Park, on the other
There’s a Cure Day.” In 1991 under the Giants
Community Fund umbrella, he developed the side of the cove. The statue depicts him at the
fund’s Junior Giants, a free baseball and life-skills finish of one of his mighty swings, his gaze sky-
program that annually serves more than 20,000 ward, watching another baseball soar majestical-
at-risk kids. In 2008 Magowan honored the Gi- ly over a right-field wall.
ants’ storied history by establishing the team’s McCovey, the son of a railroad worker who
Giants Wall of Fame at the ballpark. was born and raised in segregated Mobile, AL,
In May 2008 he announced he would step down about 250 miles from teammate Willie Mays’
at the season’s end as the Giants leader. Yet the hometown, made his Major League debut July
team architecture he established would soon 30, 1959. The 10,114 fans at Seals Stadium got
yield the Giants three World Series Champion- a pretty good inkling McCovey would have a
ships in just five years: 2010, 2012 and 2014. His brilliant career. The New York Giants had signed
tremendous leadership was lauded in 2016 when McCovey in 1955. Playing for the San Francisco
Magowan was inducted to the Bay Area Sports Giants’ Triple-A team in Phoenix four years later,
Hall of Fame. McCovey was batting .372 with 29 homers and
92 RBI when he received that late July call-up.
All McCovey did in his debut game at the age of
WILLIE MCCOVEY, the Hall of 21 was go 4-for-4 with two triples against future
Hall of Famer Robin Roberts as the Giants beat
Fame first baseman who spent Philadelphia 7-2. The Chronicle’s Bob Stevens
19 of his 22 Major League sea- wrote that McCovey, “whom they call ‘Stretch,’
sons with the Giants, and became arrived at Seals Stadium just before game time
one of the most beloved players and wound up owning it.”
in franchise history, passed away
last October 31. He was 80. Though he played in only 52 games, McCovey
McCovey teamed with Willie was the unanimous choice of the Baseball Writ-
ers’ Association of America as the NL Rookie of
Mays to give the Giants one of
the most feared duos in baseball history, but he the Year. He hit .354 (68/192) with 13 homers
and had a 22-game hitting streak.
played in only one World Series. It was McCov-
ey’s line drive to Yankees second baseman Bobby WALLY MOON, the wiry outfield-
Richardson in the bottom of the ninth inning of er with the old-school crew cut
Game 7 that ended the 1962 Series and — until who helped take the Dodgers to
the Giants broke through in 2010 — represented the World Series three times and
the closest the franchise would come to winning became a crowd favorite for his
a title on the West Coast. towering “Moon shots,” passed
McCovey was a fearsome hitter during his hey- away February 9 of last year in
day in the 1960s and ’70s, not merely because Bryan, TX. He was 87.
of his prowess, but because of how hard he hit A lefty who had proved to be a
the ball. steady hitter with decent power while with the
He played 22 seasons in the Majors, all but three St. Louis Cardinals, Moon was nonetheless com-
with the Giants, when he played in San Diego and ing off a down year when he was traded to the
had an 11-game stint in Oakland. Dodgers in 1959. And there was the ballpark
The list of McCovey’s accomplishments seems where the Dodgers then played: the cavernous
Coliseum, a graveyard for left-handed batters. It
almost as long as some of his prodigious home
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