Willie Mays' Guide to Playing the Outfield

Willie Mays has been cheered enthusiastically in and out of the ballparks where he has played. He has been called the greatest natural player of all time. In this paperback edition — whose text originally appeared in Willie’s 1955 autobiography, “Born to Play Ball” — Mays delivers himself of his ideas on how to play the outfield. For example, he thinks the classic down-on-one-knee method of fielding ground balls in the outfield is terrible, and he further disputes the standard dictum that all outfield throws should be on the bounce. Willie was aided in his writing chores by his sportswriter friend Charles Einstein. About the Author of several novels, hundreds of articles in major magazines, editor of the “Fireside Book of Baseball,” and author of television and movie scripts, Charles Einstein (1927–2007), older half-brother of comedians Albert Brooks and Bob Einstein, was a devoted Giants fan. Other works include the novel “The Bloody Spur” (on which the 1956 noir film “While the City Sleeps” was based) and 1959’s “The Naked City” (a collection of short story adaptations of scripts from the classic television series).