It wasn't the end of the story, but a chapter was coming to a close. It began -- well, of course it really began three or four years ago when Willie Mays was a high school kid playing at nights and on weekends with the Birmingham Black Barons when the club was at home, but hardly anybody got to read any of it until a little more than a year ago.

Then Willie, who had moved swiftly up in the Giants' chain through Trenton, N.J., to Minneapolis, started hitting about .250 for the Millers. As Tom Sheehan, the Giants' chief scout, recalls it: "We pick up the papers one week and say, 'Hey, Willie's hitting .300.' Next week we look and it's .350. Another week and it's .400. Finally, holy mackerel, Willie's up to .477, which has to mean he's going at something like a .600 clip, after that slow start. So he's got to come to New York.

"When the Giants called him up, Tommy Heath, the manager out in Minneapolis, told me over the phone, 'Tom, you'll think I"m crazy but this is the only guy I ever saw can bat .500.'"

It was just one year ago yesterday when Willie Mays went to bat for the first time in the Polo Grounds. He had joined the Giants on the road and had gone up twelve times without a hit but now, in his first appearance in the park that was to become his home, he got hold of a pitch by Boston's Warren Spahn.

It cleared the fence in left. It cleared the seats in the lower deck. It cleared the tall upper deck. It cleared the roof above that, and disappeared.

"That," said Spahn after the game, "Was one of the best curves I ever threw in my life. It must've broke a foot."

So now, a year later, Willie was in Ebbets Field wearing the gray flannels of the Giants for the last time in -- a year? Two years? Eternity? Nobody knows.

This morning Willie reports to the Army Induction Center in Whitehall St. and when they fit him with a soldier suit his future becomes something nobody in the world can predict. The story may not be done but the chapter is ended. New York had whipped the Dodgers twice and taken first place away from them, and on any other occasion the Giants would have been replaying those victories before this game and chattering jubilantly about Sal Maglie's four-hit shutout of Tuesday night. Instead, they were talking about Willie.

Leo Durocher, who has become a genius among defensive managers -- with Willie playing practically his whole outfield -- was saying how he wished the Army would take him and leave Willie. Maybe he wouldn't hit with Willie in camp games, the manager was saying, but he could rack up pool ball in the PX and do K.P. and pick up waste paper in the area and idle other such soldierly chores in Willie's stead.

Up in the stands, a Brooklyn fan was saying, "He plays the outfield like he's there all alone. A ball is hit and he flaps his arms like a bird."

In the press box a man said, "Leo's instructions to Willie are to catch anything he can reach, in left or center or right. He has top priority on all fly balls and it's up to the other outfielders to get out of his way."

Another man said, "Somebody down on the field was saying that if the Giants think Don Mueller and Henry Thompson are slow, wait till they see that outfield without Willie and they'll learn what the word 'slow' really means."

When the batting orders were announced, there was a fine, loud cheer for Willie. This was in Brooklyn, mind you, where "Giant" is the dirtiest word in the language. And the Giant they were talking about and cheering is a baby, only one year old in the major leagues, a child who is only learning to play baseball. As it turned out, the Giants made it three straight for the Brooklyn series, stretching their lead to two and a half games, with only a modicum of help from Willie. They didn't need his aid because Jim Hearn pitched a four-hitter, digging his own way out of difficulties created by some shoddy fielding, and young Dave Williams hit two doubles and a home run.

Willie took a third strike, flied out, grounded out and lined out on his four turns at bat, and his only play in the field was on a line drive by Carl Furillo, which Willie charged so hard the collision would have been fatal if he'd missed the catch.

The score was 6 to 1 and Brooklyn fans had given up when Willie came to bat for the last time. Suddenly the playground bubbled with noise, everybody in the place howling, clapping, yelling for a farewell hit.

Willie took a mighty swing, topped the ball so that it cracked down on his left foot, sprawled across the plate, and the cheers went on unabated. He took another fierce riffle, and missed. Then he lined low and hard and straight to Pee Wee Reese at shortstop. Cheers followed him to the dugout steps where he tipped his cap hurriedly.

He was standing with arms folded in center field when the game ended. As he jogged toward the dugout, all four umpires purposely cut across the diamond to wave goodby. He caught up with the victorious Hearn, offered a hand, and hesitated at the dugout, where three or four kids were pushing score cards and autograph books toward him.

Then he disappeared in the tunnel to the clubhouse, where his playmates gave him a portable radio and he got a tie clasp, suitable for dress uniforms, from Leo and Laraine Durocher.

On the organ, Gladys Gooding played, "I'll See You in My Dreams."

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