ABOUT BUSHVILLE WINS!

You want to move the team where?

That was the feeling in March, 1953, when the news broke – the Boston Braves were outta here, bolting Bean Town for Brew City. The national reaction – by that we mean the New York papers – had a fit. The Braves are a major league team and Milwaukee is a minor league city! Why do you want to take baseball to…Bushville?

To the rest of the country, Milwaukee was a bush league town – a minor league city since 1903, it was a great place for a beer and a cheese wheel, but you didn’t play baseball there! The scoffs were loud and large, but the Braves were coming, and Milwaukee was waiting for them.

The city loved these guys, and what wasn’t to like? The ace pitcher was Warren Spahn, a big lefty with a big leg kick and a big honker – but if an opposing batter said that to his face, he’d knock him down! And if you wanted a knock down, you wanted Eddie Mathews, the third baseman who liked his beer by day and his hard stuff by night. He had a heart of gold, but don’t get in a fight with him. And there was Lew Burdette, who swore he never threw a spitball, and longed to spit in the eye of Yankees manager Casey Stengel, who Lew thought spat in his eye when he first came up.

Then, in 1954, along came Henry Aaron.

And it was the Milwaukee Braves of 1953-1957 who ushered in baseball’s modern age in a tale all but forgotten until now, because hey, New York doesn’t care what happens in Milwaukee. But on the way to snapping the New York baseball dynasty with a dramatic World Series win in 1957, the Milwaukee Braves bridged the gap between the Victorian era and the modern age. The Braves sparked the seismic shift of tradition and geography. The Dodgers and Giants are more famous for moving west, but Milwaukee proved it could be done first.

It was a magical time with a magical relationship between the team and the town. The Braves even brought the politicians together – parties working for the common good through the local team! Imagine that! Milwaukee proved it was no busher – despite what Stengel had to say about the town in the 1957 World Series. Milwaukee proved that the power of the people could defeat big money and big power. Milwaukee taught the rest of the country how to tailgate, and the beer splashed in Green Bay and landed in Milwaukee. Whenever the rest of the country wants to know why the Packers fans are so loyal, I say, because their fan base is the grandchildren of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves, the team that proved BUSHVILLE WINS!

Contact: Twitter @BushvilleWins or email John@KlimaInk.com

About John Klima
I spent my boyhood summers sitting in the cheap seats of County Stadium. I might have snuck in without paying, I can’t remember. I liked Robin Yount, because he was from my neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley, and because he and my Mom had the same name. I thought Teddy Higuera was better than Fernando Valenzuela, and he might have been, had he not been hurt. Later, I liked Jeromy Burnitz and John Jaha. The Brewers got another valley guy in Ryan Braun.

I grew up to become a journalist, author, scout and historian. Along the way, I’ve been from one end of baseball to another. I wrote a book about Willie Mays called Willie’s Boys, which is the greatest untold scouting story in baseball history, the true saga of how Mays came to the Giants. I used to be a national baseball columnist, a minor league radio announcer, and I went to Major League scouting school and prior to that studied scouting methodology with some of the legends. I have seen a lot of baseball at a lot of different levels. Somehow, I wound up with a degree in anthropology from Cal State Northridge.

I always take a lot of pride in my research. I don’t like baseball books that re-write other books. I also talked to all the key players on this team, including a new interview with Henry Aaron, who I called Mr. Aaron.

Advance Praise for Bushville Wins!
“An irresistible tale, beautifully told, about one of the most colorful - and neglected - underdog champions in baseball history. Bushville is a winner.” – Mark Frost, New York Times best-selling Author and Twin Peaks co-creator

“Screwballs, sluggers and beer-swiggers? Those are my kind of people, and this is my kind of book. Bushville Wins! is captivating from beginning to end, a dramatic story told with marvelous writing and meticulous research. Highly recommended.” -- Jonathan Eig, New York Times best-selling author of Opening Day

“One of baseball’s finest, and most overlooked, seasons finally gets the chronicle it deserves. Thoroughly reported and elegantly written, Bushville recaptures a time and place--1950s Milwaukee--with loving detail. Except perhaps for Yankees fans, baseball lovers will want to keep Bushville on their bookshelf.” --Cait Murphy, author of Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History

About Willie's Boys
While much has been said and written about Willie Mays over the years, no book has ever explored how Willie became the player so many baseball fans consider to be the greatest all-around talent in the game’s history.

Willie’s Boys is the never-before told story of the baseball legend that might have never been. Willie’s Boys chronicles the remarkable journey that the teenaged Mays took from the Birmingham Black Barons to the New York Giants, a harrowing adventure through a historical time – when the Negro Leagues were dying and the Major Leagues were struggling to accept a diverse national pastime.

When you think of Willie Mays, there are images that spring to mind – the playful smile, the aggressive swing, the great catch in the 1954 World Series, and the throw that old timers will tell you wasn’t even the best throw he ever made.

But what is often only a footnote is that Willie Mays is a product of the Negro Leagues, and the rich Alabama baseball bloodline that gave us Henry Aaron, Willie McCovey, Satchel Paige and so many others.

Imagine for a moment Willie as a teenager, affable and awesomely gifted, yet thrown into a world where even major league teams that signed black players discriminated against them. For all the romantic images of the Negro Leagues, this was the reality. There were too many players and too few jobs.

So Willie got his education on the bus, with his wise player-manager Piper Davis, and a group of ballplayers you’ll meet when you hop aboard Willie’s Boys. There was Pipe, Squeaky, Stainless, Rocking Chair, Schoolboy, the Prophet, Zapp, His Majesty, Grease, Brit and Buck Duck – that was Willie.

Mays and his gifted teammates formed a brotherhood, centered around helping the youngest player among them achieve his dreams.

You’ll have a seat in the dugout when Piper, Willie and the Black Barons play Buck O’Neil and his mighty Kansas City Monarchs in the 1948 playoffs, on the road to the Last Negro League World Series against Buck Leonard and the Homestead Grays.

You’ll sit in the stands with the scouts, who in 1949 and 1950, tried to sign Mays for their teams. You’ll discover how hard it was for a white team to sign a black player, and how hard it was for a black player to get a fair shot – even with the talent of Mays.

You’ll have a front row seat when Willie plays his first game in New York’s Polo Grounds, not as a member of the New York Giants, but as a 19-year-old for the Black Barons. You’ll listen in as the Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, Indians, Boston Braves and White Sox all try to get Mays for their clubs, and learn how in the end, it was the underground railroad from Birmingham to Harlem that led Willie into baseball immortality.

I spent three years researching Willie’s Boys and traveled those same dusty roads to find this story, which I believe is one of the most important untold stories in sports history.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading Willie’s Boys, be it as a young fan or an old hand, and if you are a young athlete of any color, of any sport, you should read this.

Thanks for joining me and I hope you all enjoy Willie’s Boys.

Advance praise for 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 Yankees Years and manager, Los Angeles Dodgers, former manager New York Yankees, 1971 National League Most Valuable Player, and eight-time National League All-Star with the Milwaukee Braves and St. Louis Cardinals.

“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, New York Times bestselling 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