I have probably read over a hundred biographies in my life and I have to say that I just finished the best one I have ever read. WILLIE MAYS: The Life, The Legend by James S. Hirsch should be on every baseball fan's reading list.
I remember the tail end of Mays' career. The clearest memories I have are in the final year with the Mets. By this time, his peak years were way behind him and he was a shadow of his former self. However, as Hirsch makes very clear, Willie was a difference maker until the day he retired.
The detail within the book is a reflection of the research done (24 pages of Notes and 5 pages of Bibliography along with a 29 page index). But I have to say -- while most bios give you facts and historical context, Hirsch has succeeded in delivering a book which allows the reader into Willie Mays' head and into the heads of his friends, teammates and opponents. According to Hirsch, Willie still remembers in great detail events of particular games played more than three decades ago.
All of this is to say that this book is easily the most in-depth, thoroughly researched biography I have ever had the pleasure to read. I feel like I really know Willie Mays -- a man who lived as private a life as he could while simultaneously being probably the greatest baseball player who ever lived. (A case Hirsch makes.) And because I now "know" Willie Mays, I can announce: I really, really like him.
What a great review. When you can say, after how many pages of prose, footnotes, comments, bibliography, statistics, tables, and asides that you really, really like the man, that pretty much says it all. It's nice to know there are bona fide heroes out there. Or at least one.
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