After 521 Home Runs, He Was Left With Nothing: How Baseball Turned Its Back on a Legend
Willie McCovey crushed 521 home runs during his career—then walked away from baseball with no guaranteed pension. Once players aged out, the sport quietly moved on without them. “They built the league on our backs,” one former player said of that era. “Then they told us we were too expensive to keep.” By the 1960s,…