Total Page : 640
Publisher : Scribner
Publication Date : 2010 02 09
>> WILLIE MAYS BIOGRAPHY A CLASSIC
THE BIOGRAPHY IS A WONERFUL FACT FILLED TRIBUTE TO A DESERVING LEGEND THE GREATEST BASEBALL PLAYER EVER
>> A wonderful tribute to a most deservig baseball legend
I grew up in Los Angeles and because of Mays was a Giants fan and saw the great Mays with Stretch McCovey Marishall and the Alou brothers countless times Hirsch does justice in this biography of a class act sports legend that s rare if not one of a kind The book gives insights into the private life of Mays a life he purposefully kept very private I was sorrowed to learn that such a baseball great had financial problems in large part because the sport he dedicated himself to and ruled over took advantage of him But Willie never really complained
I loved Willie Mays and I loved this book I thank Willie for authorizing it and hope that he reaps significant financial rewards from its sales
After reading it though I must admit I am much less of a baseball fan now The sport has become all business for the players Clearly it needed to end up that way because it was always all business for the team owners and the playing field pun intended needed to be leveled However with the steroids and outrageous salaries some of these so called greats make kind of makes me sick to my stomach when I think of how baseball was when Willie Mays played It was magical and Hirsch portrays May as the class act we all thought he was and I continue to think he is Had it not been for having to play in Candlestick Park one can reasonably speculate that it would have been Mays and not Hank Aaron to surpass Babe Ruth in homers I do not intend to take anything away from Aaron with this speculation Indeed I ll never forget when Aaron was broke the record it was against the Dodgers But in terms of who was the best player in baseball well nobody came close nor has come close to Willie Mays ever since
Bravo to James Hirsch and a standing O for who many think may have been the greatest baseball player of all time
>> A wonderful long overdue
critical biography of one of the greatest and most beloved baseball players of all time Willie Mays
Willie Mays The Life The Legend is an extremely well written meticulously researched biography which traces the life of the Say Hey kid from his youth in heavily segregated Birmingham AL through his meteoric rise through the Negro and Minor Leagues and his Major League career in great detail This book while technically an authorized biography written with the full approval and cooperation of Mays is not a puff piece The author deals with various character flaws both perceived and real along with various controversies in which Mays was sometimes embroiled
Any serious baseball historian or Giants fan or someone interested in the struggles of African American ballplayers or lover of well written biography in general will thoroughly enjoy this book
Highly Recommended
