The Book Shopper

Willie Mays in Birmingham

Currently, I am moseying through James Hirsch's fine authorized biography of baseball great Willie Mays and it has a lot of connections for me --- especially now since my younger daughter Bonnie and her husband Tim live in Birmingham.

Last year I bought Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend (2010) for $3 on a remainder table at the 2nd and Charles Bookstore in Birmingham.  I didn't read much of it at first, but enough to learn that Mays grew up in the coal and steel town of Fairfield on the outskirts of Birmingham. By the time he graduated high school in 1947, Mays was playing professionally and in 1948 played for the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues. Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier in baseball in 1947 and within a year, most of the franchises of the Negro Leagues were already declining in attendance. The pennant-wining 1948 Black Baron team shown above (Mays is on the top row in the middle), lost in to the Homestead (PA) Grays in the Negro League World Series. 

One of the strengths of the Hirsch's book is that he does not gloss over the racial indignities and dangers of the Jim Crow era (especially in Birmingham), but he puts into context Mays's ways of coping. Jackie Robinson publicly criticized Mays for not speaking out against racial inequality, but Hirsch explains that it didn't fit into Mays's personality and Southern upbringing. Not that Mays didn't break down barriers -- he just did it in more subtle ways.

Mays the Player

But there is a lot of baseball lore as well:

• In 1951, the rookie Mays was on deck when Bobby Thomson hit "the shot heard around the world," which gave the Giants the pennant over the Dodgers.
• In the first game of 1954 World Series,  May's famous catch of Vic Wertz's deep fly ball at the Polo Grounds was not his greatest defensive play.   "The Catch" as it is known, is considered a secondary feat compared to "The Throw."  In a August 15, 1951 game against the Dodgers  when the Giants were making their famous run for the pennant, Mays ran from left center to the almost the right field line to snare a line drive by Carl Furillo, and then doing a 180 degree with his back to home plate, whirled and threw a strike to cut down a runner trying to tag up and score from third base.  Unfortunately there is no video of "The Throw." If you decide to view the famous video of The Catch instead,  pay attention to a couple of things. One, even though it looks like a wall that Mays is heading into it is actually a short fence with a dark screen. (It always looked like a tall wall to me). Secondly, why did Mays plant his foot and throw so early? The reason: Mays knew that Larry Doby, who was on second base, could have scored on a sacrifice -- even from second base. Doby was held at third and the score remained tied. This set the tone for the Series as the Giants swept the Indians.
• Outfielder Mickey Mantle was chasing a Mays fly ball  when Mantle tore up his knee on a Yankee Stadium sprinkler head in the 1951 World Series. It was also the only time Mays played on the same field as Mantle and Joe DiMaggio, who retired after the season.
• In the winter ball after the 1954 season, Mays played centerfield for the Santurce Cangrejeros (Crabbers). The team was made up many fine players, including a 19 year old rightfielder named Roberto Clemente.  And the batboy was Future Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda.

Rickwood Classic

This book coupled with my recent trip to Birmingham for the annual Rickwood Classic, a turn-back-the-clock game where they played a Double A ball in the stadium built in 1910. (This is before they tear down 20 year old stadiums  like they do in Atlanta). This game was on my bucket list. (I have a very modest bucket list). It was fantastic to go with my daughter and her husband. As you enter the stadium you can see the black and white photographs reflecting the history of the ballpark, which was the home of the Black Barons.  And when you see the mounted photograph of young Willie Mays with his Baron teammates, you are transformed into different time. Not always good. Not all bad. But a reminder that these are the roots of arguably the best all-around player to have ever taken the field.

 

 

 

In Cervantes' Spain

 
I recently returned from a two-week vacation in Spain. It was a highly personalized trip, masterfully planned  by my partner Denise (at left),  which saw us visit Madrid, Cordoba, Granada (shown at top), Seville, and  the mountainous white villages of Ronda, Arcos, and Grazalema. Accompanying on my trip--somewhat against my common sense--was a hardback copy of the Robert Goodwin's 2015 tome, Spain: The Center of the World 1519-1682. Since the book is slow reading out of the gate and it is somewhat of a boat anchor to haul around, I debated right up to the day of departure whether I would take the book, but it was decision that I did not regret.

As its title suggests, Goodwin gives an in-depth history of Spain's Golden Age beginning with the rule of Charles V. Heretofore, my knowledge of Spain was limited to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand's funding of Christopher Columbus's trip to the West Indies in 1492 and the Monty Python  skit "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition." For hundreds of pages over two weeks, I did an immersion in Spanish history (not language). I read about and viewed Spanish art and experienced the history at a different level while walking through cathedrals and palaces -- between samplings of the many cheeses, red wines, and tortilla espanolas. ( I defer to Denise's expertise with sherries, olives, and all things Flamenco.)

No tour of Spain can escape the influence of Miguel Cervantes (1547-1616), whose Don Quixote (1605) is considered to be the first modern novel. In lieu of reading the hefty Cervantes classic, which makes Goodwin's book look like a wafer, I took pictures of Cervantes-themed plaques and statues. Here's just a few photos and historical insights about Cervantes.

Number 1 - Cervantes: Captured by Pirates

In 1572, Cervantes and his brother Rodrigo enlisted in the Spanish navy and fought in the naval battle of Lepanto (off the coast of Greece) against the Ottoman Turks. Cervantes fought bravely and was finally  discharged in 1575, but en route to Barcelona he and his brother were captured by pirates from the Barbary coast. They held Cervantes a prisoner in Algiers for almost 5 years. Cervantes' own report of his captivity was recorded, in the words of Goodwin, as "a thrilling tale of derring-do, of facing danger with Christian stoicism, of pluck and courage and initiative." Shown here is  a statue of Cervantes in Madrid near the world famous Prado art museum. Coincidentally, the Prado is the home of Pieter Brueghel's 1562 painting Triumph of Death, which appears briefly in the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition sketch mentioned above.

Number 2 - Cervantes:  The Conquistadors

From reading another related book, Our America: Hispanic History of the United States, by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, I recently learned that Don Quixote satirized what was happening in the New World as well as in Spain. The conquistadors were exploring the Southwest after their conquests of Peru and Mexico and the wealth was supporting the mother country of Spain in the 16th century. But the conquistadors were hardly noble and their conditions brutish as they toiled in less than ideal conditions (hard travels, hostile Indies, disease).  Related events in the New World was described meticulously and have been preserved in the impressive Archivo General de Indias near the Grand Cathedral in Seville. The stately archives building didn't take long for us to tour, since all the museum signage is in Espanol.

Number 3 - Cervantes: The Writer

In 1615, Cervantes followed up Don Quixote (pub.1605) with a second volume on the travels of the Don and his pal Pancho. Apparently, Cervantes was thus not only the originator of the modern novel, but also the progenitor of the literary form still with us today known as the sequel. The pair of photos at right shows a space dedicated to the writer in a private patio in Cordoba that was open to the public in a festival that took place when we were visiting. As a youth, Cervantes lived in Cordoba with his family in the city from 1553-1557.

Number 4- Cervantes: The Rascal

Satirists are ornery and Cervantes was no different. He was imprisoned--not for his writing--but rather as part of a dispute that centered on his work as a taxman for the Crown.  At Seville's main plaza there were two prisons. The main facility was called the Royal Prison, which could hold nearly 1500 inmates, and a small series of cell blocks located in the adjacent Palace of the Audienca. Cervantes spent several months in the Royal Prison in 1597-98 and it is believed that is where he began writing Don Quixote. The small statue of Cervantes surrounded by palm trees shown at left is located on a narrow alley near the main plaza, which is still called Entrecarceles or "Between Jails."

Hard to imagine what the trip would have been without the book or the book without the trip, or without my guide Denise for that matter.