| Show Sports Sportswriter writer Charles Einstein dies at 80 Valerie J. J Nelson Los Angeles Times Charles Einstein a writer best known for his books on baseball including a well well- regarded memoir of Willie Mays has died He was 80 Einstein died of complications related to old age March 7 at St. St Anthony Memorial hospital in Michigan City Ind said his son Michael In Willies Time published in 1979 Einstein set the story of Mays' Mays years in the major leagues against a backdrop of US U.S. history from the early to the Calling the book a breezy engaging pastiche of statistics and social- social political history The Times' Times 1979 review said Einstein was at his best spinning baseball yarns far more absorbing than the game itself He was a brilliant guy Albert Brooks the writer- writer director actor-director who was Einstein's half-brother half told The Times this week And he would tell stories and jokes as long as you would listen Einstein wrote or edited more than 35 books His first novel The Bloody Spur about a killer who terrorizes Chicago was turned into the Fritz Lang movie While the City Sleeps in 1956 As an editor Einstein oversaw a volume four-volume anthology The Fireside Book of Baseball published between 1956 and 1987 His effort created a monument to baseball literature the baseball magazine Elysian Fields Quarterly said in 2004 Born Aug 2 1926 in Boston he vas was the son of Harry and Lillian Einstein His mother taught English and his father was the radio comedian known as After his family moved to New York City his parents divorced and both remarried His father had three more sons Brooks Bob Einstein a comedian who uses the name Super Dave Osborne and Clifford Einstein an advertising executive who is chairman of the board of the Los Angeles Museum of df Contemporary Art An Journalism was an early calling At 5 Charles typed up a newspaper that featured stories on his stuffed animals and delivered it to neighbors his son said He became a sportswriter in Chicago for International News Service and in 1958 joined the San Francisco Examiner eventually covering the Giants Baseball turned into a passion and in the late he wrote a weekly column about the game called The Einstein Theory for the San Francisco Chronicle He left the newspaper in 1970 and worked in public relations in New York City In retirement he wrote a a. a weekly column for almost 20 years on the Atlantic City entertainment scene for the Star-Ledger Star newspaper in Newark NJ Several of his books were about blackjack and versions of a counting card-counting system he developed for forthe the game in 1968 remain in use |
