He played in Major League Baseball as a shortstop from 1959 to 1972, most prominently as an integral member of the Los Angeles Dodgers teams that won three World Series titles between 1959 and 1965.

[1] Wills was the National League Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1962, stealing a record 104 bases to break the old modern era mark of 96, set by Ty Cobb in 1915.

[4] His parents were originally from Maryland; his father, born in 1900, worked as a machinist at the Washington Navy Yard and was a part-time Baptist minister.

Before the 1959 season, the Detroit Tigers bought his contract for $35,000, but they returned Wills to the Dodgers after spring training because they did not think he was worth that salary.

[11] Late in the 1962 season, San Francisco Giants Manager Alvin Dark ordered grounds crews to water down the base paths, turning them into mud to hinder Wills's base-stealing attempts.

During the tour, Wills, who was nursing bad knees and felt he was unable to perform, left in the middle and went back home.

[16] His leaving was seen as abandonment and disloyalty by Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley who was already irked at losing pitcher Sandy Koufax who had recently retired.

[15] In the 1967 season, he played in 149 games, recording 186 hits, 29 stolen bases (his lowest since having 35 in 1961), three home runs, 45 RBI, and a .302 batting average.

[3][17] In the following season, he played in 153 games, getting 174 hits, 31 RBI, and 52 stolen bases, although he was caught stealing 21 times, with a .278 batting average.

[7][20] On June 11, 1969, the Expos traded Wills to the Dodgers along with Manny Mota for Ron Fairly and Paul Popovich.

[3] For 1971, he played in 149 games while having 169 hits, three home runs, 44 RBI, 15 stolen bases, and a .281 batting average,[3] resulting in a sixth-place finish in NL MVP voting.

[23] However, Wills failed to work out during the 1972 Major League Baseball strike, and once the season finally started, he struggled with his reflexes and timing.

After a game against the Expos in which he struggled against Carl Morton, Wills went back to the bench, nodded at manager Walter Alston, and remarked, "He's certainly justified if he takes me out.

[26][27] "Almost single-handedly Maury turned baseball from its love affair with plodding, one-dimensional sluggers and got the game to consider pure speed as serious offensive and defensive weapons," noted Tommy John.

In his book, How To Steal A Pennant, Wills claimed he could take any last-place club and make them champions within four years.

However, Oakland Athletics manager Billy Martin noticed something was amiss and asked plate umpire Bill Kunkel to investigate.

However, Martin suspected that given the large number of breaking ball pitchers on the A's staff, Wills wanted to give his players an advantage.

[37] After leading Seattle to a 20–38 mark to end the 1980 season, new owner George Argyros fired Wills on May 6, 1981, with the Mariners deep in last place at 6–18.

[29] Dave Roberts similarly credits Wills with coaching him to steal under pressure circumstances, particularly his crucial stolen base in Game 4 of the 2004 American League Championship Series.

[41] As a BBWAA candidate, Wills was on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for fifteen years, from 1978 to 1992, but never received more than 40.6% of the vote, falling far short of the required 75% to be elected.

His vote total fell to half after 1982 and his subsequent arrest in 1983 for cocaine possession likely played a part in why his numbers never recovered.

[42] In 2014, Wills appeared for the first time as a candidate on the Golden Era Committee election ballot for Hall of Fame induction in 2015, which required twelve votes.

[46] Throughout most of his major league playing career, Wills supplemented his salary in the off-season by performing extensively as a vocalist and instrumentalist (on banjo, guitar, and ukulele), appearing occasionally on television and frequently in night clubs.

[53] Nonetheless, the level of proficiency attained on Wills's principal instrument was attested to on two separate occasions by the American Federation of Musicians: first, in December 1962, when the president of Los Angeles Local 47, after hearing just a few minutes of banjo playing, promptly waived the balance of Wills's membership entrance exam,[54] and then, just over five years later, when trumpeter Charlie Teagarden, specifically citing "Maury's banjo-playing ability" (and evidently unaware of Wills's already established membership), "presented him, on behalf of the musicians union, an honorary lifetime membership.

[57] After receiving the Hickok Belt in 1962,[58] Wills was determined by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to have deficiencies in reported income and awards deductions.

[66] The Maury Wills Museum in Fargo, North Dakota, at Newman Outdoor Field, home of the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks, opened in 2001 and closed in 2017 when he retired.

[69][70] While Wills had broken Cobb's single season stolen base record in 1962, the National League had increased its number of games played per team that year from 154 to 162.

Wills's 97th stolen base occurred after his team had played its 154th game; as a result, Commissioner Ford Frick ruled that Wills's 104-steal season and Cobb's 96-steal season of 1915 were separate records, just as he had the year before (the American League had also increased its number of games played per team to 162) after Roger Maris had broken Babe Ruth's single-season home run record.