Personal
In his autobiography, "On the Run: The Never Dull and Often Shocking Life of Maury Wills," Wills claims to have had a love affair with actress Doris Day as noted. Day denied this in her autobiography Doris Day: Her Own Story, and said it was probably advanced by the Dodgers organization for publicity purposes.
Wills was well known as an abuser of alcohol and cocaine until getting sober in 1989. In December 1983, Wills was arrested for cocaine possession after his former girlfriend, Judy Aldrich, had reported her car had been stolen. During a search of the car, police found a vial allegedly containing .06 of a gram of cocaine and a water pipe. The charge was dismissed three months later on the grounds of insufficient evidence.
The Dodgers paid for a drug treatment program, but Wills walked out and continued to use drugs until he began a relationship with Angela George, who encouraged him to begin a vitamin therapy program. The two later married.
In his New Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James is highly critical of Wills as a person, but still calls him one of top 20 shortstops of all time, ranking him #19.
He is the father of former major leaguer Bump Wills, who played for the Texas Rangers and Chicago Cubs during his five-year MLB career. The two had a falling out following the publication of Maury's autobiography in 1991, involving a salacious anecdote, but now occasionally speak.
In 2009, Wills was honored by the city of Washington, D.C. and Cardozo Senior High School with the naming of the former Banneker Recreation Field in his honor. The field was completely renovated and serves as Cardozo's home diamond.
Read more about this topic: Maury Wills
Famous quotes containing the word personal:
“In contrast with envy, which usually occurs between two people and is focused upon another person’s qualities or possessions, jealousy occurs when a third person becomes a threat to a dyad. Jealousy involves the loss or the impending loss of a relationship that one wants to hold onto, a relationship that is vital to personal fulfillment and claimed as one’s own.”
—Carol S. Becker (b. 1942)
“In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said, I am, in height, six feet, four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing, on an average, one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with course black hair, and grey eyes—no other marks or brands recollected.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)