Ashburn and Mays: A race to the end
Willie Mays, left, and Richie Ashburn
One of the closest batting races in history is decided 66 years ago Saturday between the Philadelphia Phillies’ leadoff batter Richie Ashburn and the San Francisco Giants all-everything star Willie Mays.
The final day of the 1958 regular season begins with Ashburn leading the National League with a .347 batting average and Mays right behind him at .345.
Playing at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field, a troublesome place for him during much of the season, Ashburn goes 3-for-4 with a single in his final at-bat to start a two-run rally for the Phillies in the 10th inning of a 6-4 victory over the Pirates.
The last hit pushes Ashburn’s season batting average to .350.
“There were four of us in the race that week – Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, Willie and myself,” Ashburn later tells Larry Shenk, the Phillies’ publicity director extraordinaire.
“I remember Sports Illustrated did a big story on the batting title and they listed odds for each. I was the last of the bunch. It really got me peeved.”
Clearly. Ashburn, who enters the season-ending, three-game series at Forbes Field with only five hits in 27 previous at-bats there in 1958, picks up eight hits against the Pirates in his final 15 at-bats of the season to lift his batting average from .344 to .350.
While the extra motivated Ashburn and the Phillies are finishing up their Sunday afternoon game at Pittsburgh, Mays and the Giants are starting their season finale at home against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Mays, batting leadoff to give him as many at-bats as possible, needs to go 5-for-5 against the Cardinals to match Ashburn’s .350.
He ends up with a single, homer and double in three of his first four at-bats before lining out in the seventh inning to Cardinals center fielder Bobby Smith in his fifth and final at-bat of the day and settling for a .347 average.
Mays is deprived a chance of another at-bat to make the race even closer since the Giants do not need to bat in the ninth inning of their 7-2 victory over St. Louis at Seals Stadium.
As for Aaron and Musial, they taper off in the final week and finish the 1958 season batting .326 and .337, respectively.
Ashburn, who also wins the 1955 National League batting title, remains the last Phillies player to lead the National League in hitting.