MLB: Southwest Virginia native, ex-ETSU slugger Ed Goodson recalls playing alongside Willie Mays with Giants (2024)

Growing up in Ivanhoe, Virginia, Ed Goodson spent hours upon hours swinging a tobacco stick and hitting cinders gathered from the railroad tracks that ran through his family’s front yard.

About twice a week the youngster might fill up a five-gallon bucket with gravel from a nearby road since those made for better targets in the country boy’s version of batting practice.

He swatted hundreds of thousands of those small stones, many times pretending to be the baseball heroes of his youth – Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle among them – as he developed a sweet swing that eventually helped him reach the game’s highest level and even play in a World Series.

Goodson was a great hitter at Fries High School in Southwest Virginia and later at East Tennessee State University and enjoyed a meteoric rise through the minor leagues after being drafted by the San Francisco Giants in 1968.

He made his MLB debut for the Giants on Sept. 5, 1970, in a seminal event that would bring him face-to-face with a slugger he used to idolize.

An icon became his teammate and Goodson’s first day in the big leagues was made more special than it already was thanks to the actions of the one and only Willie Mays, who died on Tuesday at the age of 93.

After the Fresno Giants of the Single-A California League had played a game in Reno, Nevada, near the end of the '70 season, Goodson was summoned to the office of manager Denny Sommers and got some life-altering news.

“He said, ‘Here’s your plane ticket,’ ” the 76-year-old Goodson said on Wednesday in a telephone interview from his home in Grayson County, Virginia. “I said, ‘What’s that for? I’m not going home. We’ve got another game.’ He said, ‘Nah, you’re going to The Show.’ He told me I was going to meet the team in Atlanta."

After calling everyone close to him to let them know he had gotten promoted to the majors and after a restless night of sleep, Goodson arrived in Georgia on a Saturday afternoon.

“I flew to Atlanta that morning and the cabbie took me underneath Fulton County Stadium, and they had a little area for parents, friends to wait and from there it connected to the clubhouse,” Goodson said. “The cabbie helped me get my bags out and I took them up to the clubhouse door and it was locked, so I knocked.

“Mike Murphy, the clubhouse guy, came to the door and said, ‘Are you Ed Goodson?’ and I said, “Yes sir.” He goes, ‘Wait just a minute,’ and closed the door in my face. It was between games of a doubleheader and I’m standing there like, ‘What in the world? Why wouldn’t they let me in?’ ”

Then an unexpected welcome party of one whipped open the door.

“It was Willie,” Goodson said. “He said, ‘You must be Ed Goodson. We’ve been waiting on you,’ and he comes out and gets one of my bags and I get the other one. He goes, ‘Follow me,’ and I followed him into the clubhouse and he sat down and my locker was right beside his. I was in awe.”

The star-struck Goodson quickly snapped out of his daze.

“I was sitting there taking all of that in, and [manager] Charlie Fox comes in and says, ‘You better get dressed. You’re playing this game,’” Goodson said. “It was a special day with some special memories.”

Goodson went 1-for-3 and scored a run as the Giants dropped the second game of that twinbill, the first of 515 regular-season games the utility man played over eight MLB seasons with three teams.

That initial encounter with Mays made his entry into the bigs a bigger deal.

“I talked to some guys and every opportunity he could he’d do something like that,” Goodson said. “He wanted to do it. He knew I was coming up, but it just happened to be between games, so he met me at the door and brought me in there [to the visiting clubhouse]. It’s something I’ll never forget as long as I live.”

Goodson played two seasons – 1970 and 1971 – alongside Mays with the Giants.

Mays was an aging superstar at that time, but a superstar nonetheless.

“He was at the end of the career and he went on to play with the New York Mets, but anywhere we went the stadium was packed,” Goodson said. “I mean absolutely packed and they’d come out to see him play. I got to see what the big leagues was about.”

On July 7, 1971, Goodson pinch-hit for Mays in the fifth inning of San Francisco’s eventual 18-4 loss to the Houston Astros at Candlestick Park and struck out against relief pitcher Jim Ray.

According to a Giants spokesman at the time, it marked the first occasion Mays had been pinch-hit for in a regular-season game since the All-Star entered the bigs in 1951 and it made national headlines throughout the country.

Goodson doesn’t remember much about that particular AB, but he certainly understood the magnitude of the moment all these decades later.

“I just feel so honored and blessed to have had the opportunity to play with, in my opinion, the greatest baseball player of all time,” Goodson said.

Goodson isn’t alone in his sentiment.

Abingdon, Virginia, native Gail Harris, who died in 2012, played with Mays with the Giants from 1955-57 when they were in New York and had this to say in a 2008 interview with the Bristol Herald Courier: “The greatest thrill I had was watching Mays play. He was the greatest ballplayer that ever lived in my opinion. He was also one of the finest men I met while playing. All he wanted to be was Willie Mays, the ballplayer. The players loved him.”

Science Hill High School graduate Ernie Ferrell Bowman was a teammate of Mays from 1961-63 with the Giants and told Trey Williams of the Johnson City Press in 2007, “Willie Mays was the best player ever, period.”

Jim Constable from Jonesborough, Tennessee, Joe Shipley from Morristown, Tennessee, and Harvey Gentry were also among Willie's teammates in the majors.

Gentry was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and lived most of his life in Bristol after a baseball career ended that was highlighted by a five-game stint with the New York Giants in 1954.

After Gentry passed away in 2012 his obituary in this newspaper included the line, “Upon reminiscing of his days in the majors, Harvey most frequently discussed his teammate Willie Mays.”

Coeburn, Virginia’s own Tracy Stallard and Dante, Virginia-born Harry Perkowski each served up one of his 660 career homers in the majors and he hit .300 against Dungannon, Virginia native Dave Hillman.

In combing through the archives, they all had reverence for the Say Hey Kid.

“A great guy,” Goodson said. “Just outstanding.”

Mays was indeed generous when it came to his teammates.

“[Giants shortstop] Hal Lanier kind of took me under his wing when I got called up and we’d go somewhere on the road and he’d say, ‘Let’s go over to Willie’s room and get the car keys.’ Anywhere Willie Mays went the dealerships in whatever city we were in would leave car keys to a brand-new car at the hotel for him,” Goodson said. “He would never use it because he couldn’t really leave his room [due to the attention from fans]. Hal Lanier would get the keys and we’d go get something to eat.”

Goodson was kind enough to share two photos of Mays when contacted for this story.

The first was of him and Mays not long after Goodson reached the majors and the other featured Mays holding a young Kirk Goodson, Ed’s son.

Kirk Goodson played briefly in the Chicago Cubs minor league system and has found success as a high school baseball coach – he directed the Grayson County Blue Devils to the 1997 VHSL Group A state championship and now leads the program at West Stokes High School in North Carolina.

“It was awesome to have a picture like that,” Kirk Goodson said. “Willie is an icon to the sport of baseball. The fact that my dad played with him and for me to be in a picture with him holding me at such a young age; baseball has been part of my life since I was born. That picture is a part of my dad’s journey but also a flash in time of the beginning of my love and passion for baseball.”

Ed Goodson has nothing but good memories when it comes to Willie Mays.

The guy he once imitated while hitting railroad cinders in the mountains of Southwest Virginia was eventually a teammate and that meant a lot then and now.

A whole lot.

“I couldn’t hardly sleep [Tuesday night] just thinking of the memories,” Ed Goodson said.