SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - He sits in the clubhouse of the San Francisco Giants' spring headquarters, spectacles pushed atop his head, sometimes playing cards, frequently playing with our memories.

Willie Mays seems his age now, 78, hearing reduced, eyesight inhibited. Yet in the mind's eye he remains forever young.

Willie Mays? "We got to take care of this kid,'' the late Garry Schumacher, then publicist of the New York Giants said more than a half-century ago.

"We got to make sure he gets into no trouble because this is the guy - well, I'm not saying he's going to win pennants by himself, but he's the guy who'll have us all eating strawberries in the wintertime.''

Schumacher, who came to San Francisco with Mays and the Giants when they, and the Brooklyn Dodgers, shifted West to California in 1958, could not have been more prescient.

Mays became arguably the greatest all-around player in history.

A player whose value could be summarized in a poignant sentence from San Francisco baseball writer, Bob Stevens of a ball smashed off the fence in the 1959 All-Star Game: "The only man who could have caught it hit it.''

Mays career is caught, figuratively speaking, in what is sub-titled his authorized biography, "Willie Mays, The Life, The Legend.'' It is a marvelously researched and written book by former reporter James S. Hirsch.

"Who is Willie Mays?'' asks Hirsch in the prologue. And through a volume built on interviews and a bibliography of 135 books, Hirsch proceeds to answer the question as elegantly as Mays played centerfield.

Who is Willie Mays? To a 14-year-old who stayed home from school in Los Angeles to watch a game of the 1954 World Series, an athlete who could race to deep center in the old Polo Grounds and somehow track down a 450-foot shot by Vic Wertz.

Who is Willie Mays? To a considerably older sports journalist who dealt with him for decades, sometimes without success, a wary retired superstar hesitant to tell more about himself than absolutely was necessary.

Three years ago, when Willie was approaching his birthday, and Barry Bonds, Mays' godson, was in his final, historic season, I did a column on Willie for the Oakland Tribune, for which I then worked.

Despite a reputation for surliness, Bonds was particularly cooperative, going into detail on how Willie had offered advice on how to play the games, on the field and off. Mays, however, noting I was carrying a tape recorder, said he was withholding all information for "my book,'' which of course is Hirsch's book,

A few days ago, a copy of that book rested on the table next to Mays in the clubhouse.

Mike Murphy, the team equipment manager, a Giants employee for 52 years, and Willie's confidant, paid a brief visit. Marty Lurie, the historian and pre-game radio host, thumbed through the book, all the while questioning Mays about former teammates as varied as Jackie Brandt and Hank Sauer.

It was, past and present, baseball nirvana, Mays in full recall, current players stopping for moments to pay respects to this genius of the diamond.

I thought back to 1951, Mays' first year in the bigs, when live, transcontinental television became a reality only a few days before Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard ‘Round the World.'' Willie Mays, the rookie, was in the on-deck circle when the ball left Thomson's bat.

I thought back to 1962 when in another, but less dramatic, playoff the Giants again defeated the Dodgers. I was a reporter at UPI, the old news service, and I chased down Mays. "It's like '51,'' he said, "but this time I know what's happening.''

We didn't always know what was happening with Willie. As Hirsch points out Mays felt out of place for a time in a San Francisco less accepting than it eventually would become for African Americans and other ethnic minorities.

"Mays's career exquisitely overlapped one of the great social moments in American history,'' writes Hirsch. "The modern civil rights era. One of the most recognized and admired black people of that period, Mays led by example, yet his role in the movement became the most controversial part of his legacy.''

Hirsch calls Mays an "unlikely celebrity'' who flourished in an increasingly intent media culture, which is not untrue. Aside from his basket catches, there was nothing particularly flamboyant about Willie's play or personality.

"He is now revered,'' said Hirsch, "for capturing the joy and innocence of a bygone era.''

An era which comes alive again through the words of James Hirsch.

So who is Willie Mays? Anything we want him to be.