Willie's Boys

"John Klima discovers a terrific story of overcoming all the odds to achieve your dreams. The dreamer was a dream player—Willie Mays. I loved this story and this book."
—Torii Hunter, Gold Glove Award Winner and All-Star Center fielder, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

"I was a Willie Mays fan. When he was on the field, nobody could get at him. You couldn't take your eyes off him. He was like a kid playing out in the street. He did everything with flair. John has done some digging. It's hard to find those interesting stories."
—Joe Torre, New York Times bestselling author of The Yankee Years and manager, Los Angeles Dodgers

"John Klima has a delightful way of digging deep into a forgotten pocket of sports history and coming out with an unforgettable story. He does all lovers of Willie Mays and of baseball a great service with this fine book. I really, really enjoyed it. Well done!"
—David Maraniss, New York Times bestselling author of Clemente and Rome 1960

"Willie Mays was a dazzling ballplayer, but the story of his early career is much bigger than baseball. In Willie's Boys, John Klima puts us in the front row for one of the most fascinating periods in the game's history, as the Negro Leagues died and the Major Leagues struggled with integration. Mays is the perfect protagonist. The drama is real, the stakes are high, and Klima captures it with shimmering prose and hard-nosed reporting. I loved this book."
—Jonathan Eig, author of Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig and Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season

"In Willie's Boys John Klima's studious research and careful writing create a dramatic, important, and human story out of a line of agate—Willie Mays's rookie year with the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League. As Mays himself told Klima, 'You know more about this than I do.' So will the close reader of this fine book."
—Glenn Stout, author and Series Editor of The Best American Sports Writing