SIGNED BY THE "SAY HEY KID"

HANO, Arnold. Willie Mays. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, (1966). Octavo, original pictorial cloth. $850.

First edition, signed on the title page by Willie Mays.

This biography was part of a series of sports biographies written for young readers. Mays began his Major League career in 1951 with the New York Giants. After serving in the Army, in 1954 he returned and helped steer them to a World Series victory with his famed over-the-shoulder running catch, considered one of baseball's most legendary plays. Mays' "penchant for welcoming people with 'Say hey' led to a lasting nickname—the 'Say Hey Kid.' Yet his popularity and rise to baseball immortality did not make him immune to racism" (Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture). Named to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, Mays is "an American icon whose athletic brilliance and stylistic bravado contributed to the assimilation of Blacks during the turbulent civil rights era, a distinctive figure of ambition, sacrifice and triumph who became a lasting cultural touchstone for a nation in search of heroes" (Hirsch, Willie Mays). As issued without a dust jacket. Bookplate.

Interior fine, very mild soiling to cloth. A near-fine signed copy.