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Willie's Time: A Memoir
"Whoever would understand the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball," said historian Jacques Barzun. In this captivating in-depth look at Willie Mays, one of America's greatest and best-loved ballplayers, Einstein tells us as much about ourselves as it does about the man Joe DiMaggio called "the closest thing you can come to perfection."
"A superb blend of sports lore and American history." (The Christian Science Monitor)
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1979
About the author
Charles Einstein
75 books6 followersUS author and journalist, chiefly recognized for his novels and also for his books about baseball.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 13, 2012
Still in my hero worship reading phase; this is a very readable account of Willie's career, paralleling the administrations of five presidents. Maybe a bit overwritten, which makes it a product of its time; serious sportswriters wrote like that in the later '70's in order to maintain their self-respect. I found this to be a better read than James Hirsch's Willie Mays: the Life the Legend. Also, it kind of gave me a better appreciation for Harry S. Truman, and reinforced my belief that LBJ was far and away the best post-FDR president.
July 6, 2011
An older book, not so much "the Willie Mays story", more a parallel chronicle of life in America during the span of Willies career. Very well written, the prose is complex for a supposed sports book.
I would give it 4 1/2 stars.
I would give it 4 1/2 stars.
June 3, 2015
Review title: The Historical, cultural, and political biography of Willie's time
I was a boy turning toward teenhood and puberty, and deeply commited to the Pittsburgh Pirates when Willie Mays retired, and I vaguely remember him as too old, feeble, bordering pathetic in his absurd New York Mets uniform. Einstein tells a different and fascinating story of Mays through the spectrum of the Presidents and the country they lead during the 23-year span of Mays's career. At times, with Einstein's meandering, parenthetical style (sometimes inserting two anecdotal paragraph-length stories in the middle of a shorter sentence) it is easy to lose sight of the subject.
But then Einstein brings you back to Mays and you realize that in telling you the story of Willie's time, he is telling you more about Willie than a standard chronological biography might. The "Say Hey" Kid was such an icon on and off the field that knowing the world that shaped him means knowing more about the man who shaped it in turn. The baseball statistics paint the black and white lines around the portrait (with a stunning power and poignancy in this era before expansion-diluted pitching, tiny hitter-friendly parks, and steroid-fuelled video game freaks), but the stories color in the man inside the lines.
He grew up in the South, lived with racism but refused later to vocally and visibly support civil rights efforts, yet fiercely defended his privacy and rights. He was the first young African-American player (his signing and rapid rise to the majors signalled the death of the Negro leagues, says Einstein) and played with a youthful exuberance and unmistakable laughter, yet was universally respected by players of all races and granted (and accepted) the honor of the unspoken role of team leader. Later in his career, when his manager gave him a powerful role as a coach on the field, the manager was asked in an accusatory question at a press conference why he would do that. "Because Willie Mays knows more about baseball than I do. Do you have any hard questions for me?"
For readers who lived through the time spanned by Willie's career (1950 through 1973) Einstein's mixmaster style blending presidential personalities, cultural clips, and stark stories of racism in the era spanning Jim Crow, Brown vs. Board of Education, Bull Conner, and civil rights rallies (and riots burning African-American inner cities), this is as much a memoir for the reader as a biography of the man. Younger readers may be lost in the many passing allusions, reading with Google at hand will help.
One final anecdote on how the older Mays ended up out of place in a Mets uniform to end his career. Giants owner Horace Stoneham was going bankrupt and couldn't afford to pay Mays what he asked for during a final contract negotiation, so he dealt Mays to the Mets for a minor leaguer, even at that point in Mays's career an imbalance so obvious that reports assumed that the Mets also paid cash for Mays to help keep Stoneham and the Giants afloat. Einstein reports that in fact Stoneham wanted to deal Mays to a team that could afford to give him a lucrative long term contract to take care of Mays after his playing days, and that the Mets, the National League New York franchise like the Giants when Mays started there 20 years before, were the only acceptable option.
Years later, Einstein asked Stoneham how much money he actually got from the Mets in the Mays deal.
"He said, 'There was no money.'
'None?'
'None. Do you think I was going to give him up for money?'"
In Willie's time, some things were more valuable than money could buy.
I was a boy turning toward teenhood and puberty, and deeply commited to the Pittsburgh Pirates when Willie Mays retired, and I vaguely remember him as too old, feeble, bordering pathetic in his absurd New York Mets uniform. Einstein tells a different and fascinating story of Mays through the spectrum of the Presidents and the country they lead during the 23-year span of Mays's career. At times, with Einstein's meandering, parenthetical style (sometimes inserting two anecdotal paragraph-length stories in the middle of a shorter sentence) it is easy to lose sight of the subject.
But then Einstein brings you back to Mays and you realize that in telling you the story of Willie's time, he is telling you more about Willie than a standard chronological biography might. The "Say Hey" Kid was such an icon on and off the field that knowing the world that shaped him means knowing more about the man who shaped it in turn. The baseball statistics paint the black and white lines around the portrait (with a stunning power and poignancy in this era before expansion-diluted pitching, tiny hitter-friendly parks, and steroid-fuelled video game freaks), but the stories color in the man inside the lines.
He grew up in the South, lived with racism but refused later to vocally and visibly support civil rights efforts, yet fiercely defended his privacy and rights. He was the first young African-American player (his signing and rapid rise to the majors signalled the death of the Negro leagues, says Einstein) and played with a youthful exuberance and unmistakable laughter, yet was universally respected by players of all races and granted (and accepted) the honor of the unspoken role of team leader. Later in his career, when his manager gave him a powerful role as a coach on the field, the manager was asked in an accusatory question at a press conference why he would do that. "Because Willie Mays knows more about baseball than I do. Do you have any hard questions for me?"
For readers who lived through the time spanned by Willie's career (1950 through 1973) Einstein's mixmaster style blending presidential personalities, cultural clips, and stark stories of racism in the era spanning Jim Crow, Brown vs. Board of Education, Bull Conner, and civil rights rallies (and riots burning African-American inner cities), this is as much a memoir for the reader as a biography of the man. Younger readers may be lost in the many passing allusions, reading with Google at hand will help.
One final anecdote on how the older Mays ended up out of place in a Mets uniform to end his career. Giants owner Horace Stoneham was going bankrupt and couldn't afford to pay Mays what he asked for during a final contract negotiation, so he dealt Mays to the Mets for a minor leaguer, even at that point in Mays's career an imbalance so obvious that reports assumed that the Mets also paid cash for Mays to help keep Stoneham and the Giants afloat. Einstein reports that in fact Stoneham wanted to deal Mays to a team that could afford to give him a lucrative long term contract to take care of Mays after his playing days, and that the Mets, the National League New York franchise like the Giants when Mays started there 20 years before, were the only acceptable option.
Years later, Einstein asked Stoneham how much money he actually got from the Mets in the Mays deal.
"He said, 'There was no money.'
'None?'
'None. Do you think I was going to give him up for money?'"
In Willie's time, some things were more valuable than money could buy.
May 1, 2015
This is an intelligently written work that is by no means a mere biography of Willie Mays. Rather it tells the story of the rise and exit of the greatest ball player I have ever seen in the context of the decades in which he played. If you enjoy history, you will find the Times of Willie aptly reported by Mr. Einstein. You will travel through the whole range of race relations in America and in baseball as well. You will read of the highlights of the span of the five Presidents that Willie's life encompassed when the book was published in 1979. You will also enjoy the cultural changes of those decades. But most of all you will be thrilled by the history of the man mays and his accomplishments in the game he loved. My only quibble is that the book had too many tangents and capillaries for my taste but that was the author's apparent intent.
For anyone who wants to learn more of Willie's life as a player this will provide abundant anecdotes and facts that will satisfy your appetite.
For anyone who wants to learn more of Willie's life as a player this will provide abundant anecdotes and facts that will satisfy your appetite.
March 18, 2010
I love baseball and I love history. This biography tells the story of a man I respect and the struggles he endured to reach the point where he was recognized as one of the greatest baseball players ever. It gives insight into the civil rights struggles of the fifties and sixties and highlights the strength of character shown by black men trying to earn the respect they deserved. This is a must-read.
May 1, 2014
I can't recommend this book enough. It sat unread on my shelves for more than a decade, an gem unnoticed. It is not merely a bio of the great Willie Mays but rather a clever placing of Mays in the context of his time. The Mays anecdotes are numerous, but so too are the observations of writers, presidents and cultural icons. This book captivated me from start to finish.
July 29, 2021
Time to get ready for another baseball so I picked up my favorite baseball book. Read it when it came out in 1979, and it’s even better now:
Willie … presidents … race … random musings. It’s a fun read and an important book.
Willie … presidents … race … random musings. It’s a fun read and an important book.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews