Say Hey: The Autobiography of Willie Mays

This baseball story by a black athlete, coauthored with freelancer Sahadi, is generous in spirit, and Mays emerges as one of the most kindhearted of men. A pro at age 14, he played for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues against stars like Satchel Paige and ""Cool Papa'' Bell. At 20, he joined the New York Giants, then managed by Leo Durocher, whom he credits with ``making'' his career by showing faith in him after his inauspicious big-league debut. He writes of his years in New York, in San Francisco, where the fans originally were chilly to him, and in New York again, with the Mets. And there is a brief but informative segment on his postbaseball career, which he initially found traumatizing because his adolescence and adulthood had been spent as a ballplayer. Mays founded and directs the Say Hey Foundation, a fund for the education of youngsters. This is an autobiography long overdue and eminently readable. Photos not seen by PW. First serial to the Los Angeles Times syndicate; paperback rights to Pocket Books; Literary Guild alternate. (May)