Willie and/or The Duke

Willie Mays, a center fielder virtually his entire career, moved over to right field in the 1956 All-Star Game, giving way to Duke Snider in the fifth inning.

Duke Snider, like Willie Mays a center fielder most of his career, moved to right in the 1954 All-Star Game when Mays entered the game in the fourth inning and took over center.

By Phil Ellenbecker
  Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider (Willie, Mickey & the Duke in Terry Cashman's song "Talkin' Baseball"). That was the raging argument facing New York baseball fans in the 1950s, stating their case for which center fielder was the best in the city.

  While that was a tough one to settle orally -- they were about equally dominant over their peers -- it was resolved, in a sense, between the two National League center fielders in the mid-'50s at the ballot box for the All-Star Game, then controlled by the fans. And whom did they pick? The People's Cherce (as Brooklyn fan favorite Dixie Walker was referred to in the '40s) in 1954 and 1955 was the Dodgers' Snider, chosen to start both years over the Giants' Mays. Then in 1956 both gave way to Cincinnati's Gus Bell, as Reds fans set the stage for their next year's ballot-box stuffing by voting in five players. All eight Reds position players were voted in for the '57 game. (Commissioner Ford Frick stepped in and replaced three Reds with Mays, Hank Aaron and Stan Musial).

  NL manager Walter Alston in 1954 and '56 found a way to get around having to decide between Mays and Snider and get both in the game at the same time. In 1954 in Cleveland, Alston played musical chairs by inserting Mays in the game in the bottom of the fourth inning and moving Snider from center to right, Musial right to left. 

   Snider finished the game 3-for-4 with two runs scored, Mays 1-for-2 with a run in a game won by the AL11-9.

    In 1956 in Washington, it was a slightly different form of musical chairs with the same players. Mays pinch hit for Bell in the top of the fourth and belted a two-run homer, then moved into center field. Snider batted for starting left fielder Frank Robinson in the fifth, then took over center, with Mays moving to right and Musial from right to left.

  Mays finished the game 1-for-3 with a run and two RBIs courtesy the homer. Snider was 0-for-3. The NL won 7-3.

  In 1955 in Milwaukee, with Mays' manager Leo Durocher in charge, Snider started and was replaced by Mays in the top of the sixth. Mays ended up with more trips to the plate when the game went into extra innings and finished 2-for-3 with two runs scored, while Snider was 0-for-2.

  The NL ended up winning the game 6-5 on Musial's leadoff homer in the bottom of the 12th, capping an NL comeback from a 5-0 deficit.

   Willie took over center for the NL beginning in '57, as Snider didn't play in another All-Star Game until 1963, his penultimate season in the major leagues. Mays --  who according to baseball-almanac.com holds All-Star career records for at-bats, extra-base hits, hits, runs, stolen bases, total bases and triples --  started 14 straight All-Star Games in center from 1957 to 1962, including the two games each year for the players' pension fund from 1959-1962,

  For the record, Snider, according to retrosheet.org,, played only 24 games off center field in his first 12 seasons of an 18-year career, but beginning in 1959 he began to see more time in right and left than in center.

  Mays, meanwhile, didn't play an outfield position other than center field until 1965 (he did have five infield stints in '62 and '63). He finished his 22-year career with only 28 games total at the other two outfield positions, according to retrosheet.org, although he did play 78 games at first base over his final six seasons.