Check Out Our Willie Mays Collection at the Birmingham Public Library & JCLC

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The Birmingham Public Library & other libraries in Jefferson County have 198 books & DVDs about Willie Mays and the Negro League. BPL's digital collection includes a series of interviews with former Birmingham Black Baron players and BPL has YouTube interviews with Black Baron players as well. Learn more by reading this blog written by BPL PR Director Roy L. Williams.   

Birmingham. Ala. - Did you know that public libraries in Jefferson County, including the Birmingham Public Library, have nearly 200 books, DVDs and other items about baseball legend and Birmingham native Willie Mays?



MLB will honor Mays during a tribute today, Thursday, June 20, to the Negro League at Rickwood Field between the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals. The game airs on Fox network tonight at 6:15 p.m. CDT and will include a pregame ceremony honoring Mays, who began his pro career with the Birmingham Black Barons in 1948.   


 Built in 1910, Rickwood Field, 1137 2nd Avenue West, is the nation's oldest professional baseball stadium. It was the site of the final Negro League World Series game in October 1948. Mays and his Black Barons fell to the Homestead Grays in five games. 

This mural tribute to Birmingham native Willie Mays was unveiled on Wednesday, June 19. It was painted in less than a week on the side of a building in the 1800 block of 1st Ave. North downtown.   The project was designed by Chuck Styles and final touches were completed a day Mays died.  





The City of Birmingham owns the Birmingham Negro Southern  League Museum, located at 120 16th Street South near Railroad Park. The museum is closed today as the MLK baseball tribute to the Negro Leagues happens at Rickwood Field, but reopens at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, June 21. Call the museum for operating hours at (205) 581-3040. Visit its website at Birminghamslm.org. 

Here are some wonderful books about Willie Mays available at BPL, picked out by David Ryan, a librarian at the Central Library's Arts Literature and Sports Department: 




Authorized by Willie Mays and written by a New York Times best-selling author, this is the definitive biography of one of baseball's immortals.


Also available for purchase on Amazon, Mays in this autobiography Say Hey discusses his legendary career, his greatest plays, his greatest teammates and opponents, his start in Negro League baseball and his most bitter moments in professional baseball.    




Lively and unusual art inspired by baseball's best all-around player. As much as any sports figure, Willie Mays embodies the changes that racial integration  brought to America's game and and its larger culture in the mid-20th Century. Playing baseball with grace, skill and flair, and obvious delight, Willie Mays broke color barriers for more than just himself. He combined the ability to stroke majestic homeruns with an equal ability to outrun and catch what would have been homeruns for opponents most famously when he turned Vic Wertz's titanic blast into a long out in the 1954 World Series. 

Assembled in this work are 40 representations of how contemporary artists respond to the skill, fame and sheer love of the game that make Mays so remarkable and memorable.   


24 Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid by Willie Mays and John Shea (2020)

In this New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle best-seller, Mays shares the inspirations and influences responsible for guiding him on and off the field in this  reflective and inspirational memoir. 

"It is because of giants like Willie that someone like me could even think about running for president," President Barack Obama says in the book. Obama presented Mays with the nation's highest individual honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 2015.     





The book provides a history of the Negro Leagues and the role they played in integrating baseball.

 
Here are some DVDs about Willie Mays recommended by Central Library's David Ryan


The history of the Negro Leagues is often a forgotten part of baseball history, despite its popularity and wealth of talent is still not well documented. The film sheds light on this period  and shows how it laid the groundwork for African American players in today's Major League baseball. Includes footage from the 1920s through the 1950s.


 This powerful film celebrates the dynamic journey of Negro League baseball's triumphs and challenges through the first half of the 20th century. 


 This 2007 film pays tribute to the many topflight players from the Negro Leagues in baseball when players were denied stardom by the color line. 

Click below to read other articles about Willie Mays 







By Roy L. Williams| Public Relations Director of the Birmingham Public Library

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