R.I.P. Bill Mazeroski, Hall of Famer and the man who made Mickey Mantle cry

I was watching the Pirates yesterday because I was curious about their new and highly-touted teenage shortstop, Konnor Griffin. Man, shortstops are no longer the wimpy little guys who played there in my boyhood. This dude is a big boy. The announcers reported that Griffin became the youngest Pirate to get a hit in his first game since Hall of Fame second baseman Bill Mazeroski did it about 70 years ago, on July 7, 1956.

And then I realized that I missed Maz’s death in late February.

Many people have maligned his HoF credentials, arguing that he’s there just because he hit one of the most dramatic homers in baseball history. Playing for the Pirates, he became the man who made Mickey Mantle cry when he defeated the mighty Yankees with a single blow. He cleared the left field wall in old Forbes Field in the bottom of the ninth in game seven of the 1960 World Series. It remains to this day the only game 7 walk-off homer in baseball history.

But that’s not why Mazeroski should be in the Hall of Fame. He was better at turning a double play than any other defensive second baseman in baseball history.

People are well aware of dominating performances in pitching and batting. Any good fan knows that Babe Ruth hit 54 homers in his first year with the Yankees, when nobody else in the league could even reach 20. Every good baseball nut knows that Pedro Martinez posted a 1.74 ERA in the height of the steroid era, when the league’s second-place guy was at 3.70. But only a tiny fraction of baseball fans know that Maz put up defensive stats just as impressive as that.

• In 1966, Maz turned 161 double plays. The NL’s second-place guy turned 89.
• That’s the best season in history, but was no fluke – Maz also has two others in the top six.
• Among all second basemen in history, he has the highest lifetime defensive WAR.
• Over the course of a career, he turned a double play every 10.7 innings, making the him best of all time, and one of only two men below 12.

By the way, Maz’s record of 161 double plays is unassailable. The record in this century is 136, and the league leaders have fewer every year. Nobody even reached 100 in 2024 or 2025. The current baseball strategy is based on “three true outcomes,” which means that the number of ground balls is declining. Because there are so many strike-outs now, and because players try to hit the ball in the air when not whiffing, there are 15%-20% fewer ground balls than in Maz’s era, so even if Maz could come back to life with his 1966 skill level and got paired with the game’s best SS, he could not approach his own record.

Was Maz the greatest second baseman of all time? Of course not. Batting is important, and he stunk as a hitter. There is a baseball stat, called OPS+, which measures the total value of a player at the plate, with 100 representing average production for a major league hitter. In 17 seasons in the majors, Maz never even reached 100. He was always decidedly below average. He wasn’t even the best second baseman of the 50s and 60s. Nellie Fox and Red Schoendienst, near contemporaries, were almost as good defensively, and were consistent .300 hitters.

Was Maz a great player? Sadly, no. His lifetime WAR was 37, with most of it coming from defense, far lower than an average Hall of Famer.

But what is the Hall of Fame designed to honor? Is being the greatest defensive player at one important position not sufficient? I think the Hall is designed to honor special lifetime achievements, and that seems pretty special to me. That got Ozzie Smith (.262 lifetime) and Brooks Robinson (.267) in. Brooks was an average offensive player, and Ozzie was below average. They were both better players than Maz, but there’s no good reason why comparable skills shouldn’t have gotten Maz in as well. I concede that he’s a marginal HOFer, but I would probably have voted for him because “best defense of all time at a key position” swings emotional weight with me.