Winfield: A Player's Life [VINTAGE 1988]

Fine condition blue boards/yellow cloth spine/red spine lettering contained in a fine condition non price-clipped color photographic dust jacket. Includes Author Dedication. Illustrated with two sections of black-and-white photographs. The upper jacket spine edge is lightly rubbed (see photographs). All pages are in fine unmarked condition and the spine/binding is exceedingly tight and square (see photographs). "Six foot six, 220 pounds. Bats right, throws right. Power hitter to all fields. Runs hard, fast, and smart on the base-paths. Climbs the wall like Spiderman to steal homeruns and throws the ball on a rope to pick off runners. A blueprint for the complete player, Dave Winfield. But, as this book shows, Dave Winfield has also lived a complete life, on and off the field. The Game -- From spring training to the World Series. Stories from the San Diego Padres of Gaylord Perry, Rollie Fingers, Tito Fuentes' pre-game voodoo ritual, and WIllie McCovey (the superstar who took a young Dave Winfield under his wing). And from the New York Yankees stories of Yogi Berra, Reggie Jackson (how Dave and "I'm the straw that stirs the drink" won the Pennant together), Don Mattingly (the inside story of their down-to-the-wire race for the battling title in 1984), Don Baylor ("rent-a-leader"), Willie Randolph (the consummate professional), and Ron "Gator" Guidry (judge of the Yankees kangaroo courty). Money -- When free-agent fever changed baseball forever, Dave became the most sought-after free agent of all, wooed by George Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees with a contract that made him the "$23 million man." Bosses -- All unpredictable, from C. Arnholt Smith, who drew the Padres' paychecks on his own failing bank, to his successor Ray Kroc, the McDonald's hamburger king who grabbed the announcer's mike to blister the team in front of the opening-day fans, to George Steinbrenner, who ends his tirades by exhorting the players to "go out there and have some fun." Color -- After Dodger executive Al Campanis questioned blacks' ability to manage baseball teams on "Nightline," Dave found himself at the center of baseball's move towards fairer hiring. Dave tells us about these events and, more important, the day-to-day complexities of race in baseball, answering the question, "Can a black man be a true Yankee?" People -- The players, the agents, the hangers-on, the women, the celebrities from Bill Cosby to Martina Navratilova and Stevie Wonder. The Road -- The cities, the parks, the fans, from three comic-disaster weeks when the Padres sent Dave to play winter ball in Mexico - and "Winf', el gigante Negro" came face to face with "el Arana, the spider," the hunchbacked clubhouse man who chased rats through the locker room with a baseball bat -- to being arrested for conking a seagull on the head in the outfield in Toronto. Illuminating these events and others is a rich family story. We see how Dave was inspired to achieve by his mother's struggle as a single parent . how his wildness as a young man landed him in jail and changed his life for the better . how he found a father figure in the most ulikely person, an irascible, paunchy, chain-smoking Jewish businessman . how the help others gave him as a child led him to form the Winfield Foundation for disadvantaged children . how his efforts to keep the Foundation alive embroiled him in a legal feud with George Steinbrenner -- and a memorable confrontation with Roy Cohn . how he has made the Foundation a leader in fighting drug abuse from the clubhouse to the Reagan White House. Not since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's best-selling Giant Steps have we had so side-ranging and forthcoming a book from a great athlete. Here are the fascinating twists and turns of an extraordinary player's life. Here is a book that is distinctively, winningly, Winfield." - from the inner front and rear jacket flaps.…