Willie Mays Reflects On Legendary Baseball Career : NPR: A new authorized biography, Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend, has the baseball great, now 78 years old, back out mixing with his fans. At a tour stop in New York, he talks with NPR's Robert Siegel about his life, career and — inevitably — the famous play he made in the 1954 World Series, known in baseball lore simply as 'The Catch.'The Entertainer
Mays was not only a great player, but he was also a performer. He took time to craft tricks to use on the field and amuse the fans.
"When I played ball, I tried to make sure that everybody enjoyed what I was doing," Mays says. "I made the clubhouse guy fit me a cap that when I ran, the wind gets up in the bottom and it flies right off. People love that type of stuff."
The author of his biography, James Hirsch, attributes much of Mays' creativity to the Negro League he played with before going to the major league. But Mays says this flair for entertaining comes from an even earlier influence: his father.
"My father was a steel mill worker, and he would teach me the game of baseball. So when I came to Birmingham Black Barons, I already knew how to play the game," Mays says. "My father had already taught me that you can do just anything in the outfield."
