Willie's Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, The Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend

by John Klima

The story of Willie Mays's rookie year with the Negro American League's Birmingham Black Barons, the Last Negro World Series, and the making of a baseball legend Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays is one of baseball's endearing greats, a tremendously talented and charismatic center fielder who hit 660 career homeruns, collected 3,283 hits, knocked in 1,903 runs, won 12 Gold Glove Awards and appeared in 24 All-Star games. But before Mays was the "Say Hey Kid", he was just a boy. Willie's Boys is the story of his remarkable 1948 rookie season with the Negro American League's Birmingham Black Barons, who took a risk on a raw but gifted 16-year-old and gave him the experience, confidence, and connections to escape Birmingham's segregation, navigate baseball's institutional racism, and sign with the New York Giants. Willie's Boys offers a character-rich narrative of the apprenticeship Mays had at the hands of a diverse group of savvy veterans who taught him the ways of the game and the world. Packed with stories and insights, Willie's Boys takes you inside an important part of baseball history and the development of one of the all-time greats ever to play the game.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Robert Morrow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books where you spend the first third wondering, "Am I going to finish this?" and the last two-thirds feeling very glad you did.

After a disjointed and uncertain beginning, the book comes comes together with the appearance of the first villain: the Kansas City Monarchs, the great Negro League baseball team owned by a Klansman. This is when we begin to appreciate the book's true hero and Mays' first manager, Piper Davis, and when the true plot of the book---the deviousness of the white power structure after Jackie Robinson's debut---becomes apparent. At that point, you begin rooting intensely for these talented men who spend their prime years trying to get "out of the box."

Klima is an excellent writer about both baseball and about the behind-the-scenes business dealings where real business is conducted. His descriptions of the games in the 1948 Black Barons-Monarchs playoff series are on-the-edge-of-your-seat exciting. Even more to his credit is his ability to write extensively about the labyrinthine process of how a black player could someday get to the majors, which reads more like the good parts of an exciting detective novel than a boring business tome. His descriptions of the daily lives of these players are also vivid, riveting and often poignant.

Come to think of it, this is the best book I've read on the Negro Leagues to date, and I recommend it to baseball fans, civil rights advocates and students of manipulative business people.

[Spiros · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up, I was in awe of Willie Mays. In our games of streetball (or drivewayball), Anthony McBride, a year older and infinitely more talented than I, always got to be Willie, and I was perfectly contented to be Bobby Bonds. When Willie was traded to the Mets in '72, I had my first intimation that something in the cosmos was very wrong: the name "Charlie Williams" still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This book is valuable in the depth with which it examines the beginnings of the man who was my first flesh and blood hero (Curious George and Batman were my first two, for anybody out there keeping score). I had known that Willie's nickname was "Buck"; I hadn't realized that was a shortened form of the nickname "Buckduck" (he ran like a buck, he walked like a duck).
This book is much more than a Marvel Origins tale; it is also a poignant account of the death of the Negro Leagues. In addition, it is a celebration of the men who nurtured Willie's phenomenal talent, and who readied him fo his entry into White Baseball, particularly Lorenzo "Piper" Davis, the player/manager of the Birmingham Black Barons, who guided the Barons to the 1948 Negro American League pennant.
A minor qualm I have with this book is its portrayal of Buck O'Neil as an Uncle Tom. I paged through I WAS RIGHT ON TIME, O'Neil's autobiography, and found six references to Tom Baird, the Klansman owner of the Kansas City Monarchs for whom O'Neil served as player/manager: one of which refered to Baird (and three others) as "Kansas City friends", one of which mentions that Baird helped secure a job as schoolteacher for O'Neil's wife, and four others which were passing references. This hardly constitutes ass-kissing.

[Anna Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

While the writing was at times so full of names and characters it became hard to follow, the story was so intriguing, I couldn't stop reading. It wasn't just Willie Mays's story, but of an entire team, an era, a moment when one man's future lay in the hands of many, with even more dying to hold him back. If you love baseball or are fascinated with early Civil Rights sagas, I heartily recommend this book. If you are mildly interested in either of these subjects, I say give it a go.

[Daryl Grigsby]

I loved this book - the intersection of baseball, racism and politics. Bull Conner was radio announcer for Birmingham Barons, great black religious historian C. Eric Lincoln kept score for the Black Barons as a student - and great info on Mays, Artie Wilson, Piper Davis, et al.

[Paul Lunger · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of Negro League Baseball is one that at times is a bit regional depending on where teams were located & is also one that at times doesn't get a lot of attention. John Klima's "Willie's Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, the Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend" gets into the story of the Birmingham Black Barons and the world that the African American ballplayers were involved in. This is also the tell of a very young Willie Mays who those early players in Birmingham knew was going to be a very special person. What makes this book unique though to this reader is the fact that Klima very openly mentions the prejudices that these players faced in their lives as well as the differences between "white people's ball" and their own. It also gets into some of the darker sides of how African American players were treated at the major league level by teams that were extremely prejudiced toward these individuals who only wanted to be equals. In an era where we are more divided than ever, this book is a reminder of the struggles people faced in sports then and even now.

[Brent Soderstrum · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a big Willie Mays fan. This book isn't specifically about just Willie Mays though. This is a book the covers the Negro Leagues, the 1948 Negro League season and the last Negro League World Series. It focuses on the team that Willie Mays was a part of which lost the NLWS to the Homestead Grays...the Birmingham Black Barons. Willie was a kid of 16. He had some hitting issues but everyone could tell he was going to be great. He also was an incredible CF (though he had to play LF at first) with a cannon for an arm.

The best parts of this book was the description and discussion of the bitter rivalry between the Birmingham Black Barons and the Kansas City Monarchs. They met to see who would play the Homestead Grays in the World Series. The owners hated each other. I had always assumed that Buck O'Neil, the manager of the Monarchs was always beloved by all. Now I can see why he didn't get elected into the Hall of Fame. He had his enemies. Which is hard to believe from all the interviews I saw of him.

My other favorite part of the book was the recruiting and signing of Willie Mays to a contract. His father, Cat, wouldn't let will Willie sign with anyone till he graduated high school. The near misses of the Red Sox, White Sox, Braves, Dodgers and Yankees from signing Willie are set out. John Piper, the player manager and Willie's mentor, was used by the Red Sox to try and get Willie to sign with them. In fact they signed Piper but then stupidly cut him a couple weeks before Willie graduated high school which torpedoed them getting Willie. What might have been for all of the other teams who each had things breakdown for them.

Fun read. Lots of player discussed which includes what happened to them.

[STEVE HOLLEY · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best...

This book taught me so much about the Birmingham Black Barons so that by the time I was a quarter of the way through, I’d remembered and recognized each player and starter from that ‘48. The author shines a unique spotlight on how huge a role Piper Davis played in Willie Mays’s career; as well as his Black Barons teammates. It also shines the harsh truth about the much fawned over Kansas City Monarchs, whose owner was a bigoted racist that belonged to the Kansas Ku Klux Klan, and how many players suffered under the power men like Baird held back then, as well as the Monarchs own deceit and prejudice toward other Negro League teams. This is one of my favorite books of all time and is well deserving of a five star rating. Essential reading for any fans of the the Birmingham community and Negro League’s. Five Stars.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few random thoughts that don't necessarily pertain to the story itself, but sum up most of what you need to know about the book.

-This book feels very long. There is a lot of content, which is OK. But it just feels long. Part of that is that the title says "1948" but you get to the end of the 1948 season and the book is only 60% done. The book continues into the 1949 season and even beyond, in order to track the Barons and Willie Mays further down the road. It makes sense that it works that way, it was just a bit strange at first.

-This is as much a book about Piper Davis as it is about Willie Mays. That's fine; it might actually be a good thing since there are other books about Mays and Piper might actually be a more interesting character. The book is at its best when it is talking about Piper and his relationships with his players.

-Klima spends a lot of time speculating about what might have happened behind the scenes, or describing the back-alley transactions that did happen. Some of this is interesting, a lot of it isn't; some of it has been described in other places, some of it hasn't. This book is intended to be about everything that happened to get Mays to the major leagues. But the book is stronger when it talks about the players than when it talks about the front office.

-A lot of the book's content is just a compilation of other interviews and other stories. It's great that someone did it, and put together the story of Willie Mays. I just feel like the book could have been more focused, and maybe the wide variety of source material made it difficult to hone in on the key story.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. You get a clear picture of what the Negro Leagues were like in the late 40s, from the fading attendance to the simultaneous clamor for and institutional fear of getting these players to the major leagues. You get a feel for everything that surrounded Mays, and how everyone helped him and even sheltered him along the way. You get a feel for how special everyone thought Mays was, and how amazing he was even at a young age. If you're looking for a thorough background, this book is a good place to start.

[matteo · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much going on in this book. It covers a time period and a league that unfortunately were not well covered at the time, so the records are not great. It takes place predominantly before much integration had happened in baseball or in the country. The author does a good job describing the team that was Mays' family, although at times it really leaves you wishing for more of Mays himself... but if I wanted that, I probably should not have gone for a book titled Willie's Boys. By the end, you are attached to the "characters," and you feel sad when you hear how certain things went for certain people. And it is mind boggling to realize how much race played a part in how professional teams picked and bought players--and how teams like the Yankees and Red Sox (whew) missed the boat on Mays because of the color of his skin. It really was not that long ago in the grand scheme of things, which goes a long way towards explaining why some people are like they are nowadays.

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first responsibility of a non-fiction writer is to transform all of their research into as readable of a narrative as possible. A writer takes information gleaned from documents, interviews, and film, and then synthesizes scattered pieces into a coherent story.

Klima simply does not do that. The book reads like a disjointed oral history of the 1948 Birmingham Barons and the hoopla surrounding the eventual move of Willie Mays to the major leagues. While the latter did teach me more about how Mr. Mays came to be a New York Giant, the rest of the book just wasn't a pleasing read. Klima falls in love with cute baseball lingo, vilifies several very respectable figures who were rivals to the Black Barons, and treats the Black Barons as the end-all-be-all of the story of baseball's integration.

Not worth reading.