A professional baseball player and manager from the United States, Maurice Morning Wills died on September 19, 2022. From 1959 through 1966 and from the latter part of 1969 to 1972, he predominantly played shortstop and switch-hitting for the Los Angeles Dodgers in Major League Baseball.
He also spent time with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1967 and 1968, and the Montreal Expos for the first half of 1969. Wills, who was a crucial member of the Dodgers’ championship teams in the middle of the 1960s, is credited with bringing back a baseball strategy that included stealing bases.
Wills won the 1962 Most Valuable Player (MVP) award for the National League after breaking Ty Cobb’s 1915 record of 96 base steals with a record-breaking 104.
He played in seven All-Star Games and five seasons as an All-Star. In 1962, he was the first MLB All-Star Game Most Valuable Player.
In 1961 and 1962, he also received Gold Glove awards. Wills batted for a total of fourteen years. 20 home runs, 458 RBI, 2,134 hits, 1,067 runs, 177 doubles, 71 triples, 586 stolen bases, and 552 bases on balls in 1,942 games for 281 total.
Wills served as the Dodgers Legend Bureau representative for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2009 until his passing in 2022.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Golden Era Committee election ballot for Wills’ potential nomination for induction into the Hall of Fame in 2015, which required twelve votes, featured him for the first time as a candidate in 2014.
By three votes, Wills fell short of being elected. The other candidates that were up for election also fell short of winning.
Every three years from 1947 to 1972, the Committee conducted a meeting when they voted on ten candidates (this was replaced in 2016 by the Golden Days Era, which covered 1950–1969). For the Golden Days Era ballot in 2022, he was once more on the list, but he did not collect enough votes to be inducted.
Maury Wills First Wife: Who is Maury Wills’ Ex-Wife Gertrude Wills?
Gertrude Elliot Wills is the first wife o Maury Wills. The duo went their separate ways on March 17, 1971, and Maury Wills later got married to Carla.
