Up close, not personal

Portrait captures the greatness of Willie Mays as a player, but offers little about him as a man

February 14, 2010|Floyd Skloot

Willie Mays, the baseball hall-of-famer, is 78 now. Because he arrived in the major leagues at 19 and quickly became a blazing star for the New York Giants, because his style of play was so exuberant and charged with youthful energy, because his hitting and fielding and running gifts seemed superhuman, it is difficult to imagine Mays aging, slowed by an artificial hip and glaucoma: human after all.

His exploits on the field have now been reduced to statistics, decades of baseball mythology, a few hazy highlight moments on YouTube, and the memories of an aging and vanishing group of people who witnessed his performances. Those statistics, the primary way baseball achievement is evaluated, suggest that Mays was among the best offensive and defensive players in history. But they miss his particular genius and radiant flair, the unequaled qualities of play that made Mays more than the sum of his numbers. According to James S. Hirsch in “Willie Mays: The Life, the Legend,’’ the first authorized biography of the baseball great, Mays was the game’s “greatest master.’’

Hirsch faces a series of difficult tasks as a biographer. To give readers a sense of why Mays was “spellbinding’’ on the field, to evoke his unique impact on fans and the game, Hirsch must capture something like the essential mystery of expressive brilliance. He must find words to portray the ineffable. Hirsch quotes contemporaneous sportswriters, fellow players, and fans, as when teammate Monte Irvin says, “You always knew when he was around, because the love of life just flowed out of him.’’ Sportswriter Milton Gross called Mays ”an emotional experience,” adding that ”he is the tie that binds so many of us to our carefree days of the past and for the younger generation he is the legend that lives, the only authentic piece of active history which links baseball as it is to what it used to be.’’

Hirsch devotes an entire chapter to describing Mays’s famous catch of a long fly ball during the 1954 World Series, a play that “evokes the awe and wonder’’ of Mays’s skills. He moves season-by-season through a career of extended distinction. Such descriptions, along with statements of “the pure joy that he brought to fans and the loving memories that have been passed to future generations,’’ are at least convincing testimonials that Mays was a player “who electrified the major leagues.’’