By Hank Waddles Bronx Banter September 25, 2009 You probably don’t know Arnold Hano. How could you? You live in a world of bullet points and exclamation points, a place where sportswriters aspire either to the pomposity of ESPN’s “Sports Reporters” or to the cacophony...
By Brad Darrach Playboy February 1975 “The rich,” according to a Spanish proverb, “laugh carefully.” They have a lot to lose. The poor, on the other hand, need to laugh in order to forget how little they have to laugh about—which may be why the Depression was the last...
By Alex Belth The Stacks Reader May 22, 2016 Rich Cohen writes books that are hard to put down. From Tough Jews and The Record Men to his hilarious memoir, Sweet and Low: A Family Story, to the hearty—and heartfelt—appreciation of the 1985 Chicago Bears, Cohen is...
By Alex Belth Bronx Banter April 24, 2012 Mark Kram Jr. is one of the finest practitioners we have of long-form newspaper journalism, better known as the bonus or takeout piece. He has been with the Philadelphia Daily News since 1987 and his work has appeared in The...
By Alex Belth The Stacks Reader Is James Brown the most influential American musician of the 20th Century? He’s certainly in the conversation along with Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan and Michael Jackson. His story—the undeniable musical legacy as well as the catastrophic...
By Alex Belth The Daily Beast November 14, 2014 Marilyn Johnson is a writer with a terrific capacity for learning. She’s endlessly curious and she also has a wonderful gift for turning her curiosity into writing that’s engaging and approachable. Her enthusiasm is...
By Alex Belth Bronx Banter July 28, 2003 The author of Moneyball was in Boston to throw out the first pitch last Friday night. (David Halberstam, eat your heart out.) A week earlier, Michael Lewis was in New York, putting the finishing touches on the press tour for...
By Alex Belth Bronx Banter March 31, 2003 I was lucky enough to meet Buck O’Neil, the legendary Negro League ballplayer, nine years ago when I was working as a production assistant on the Ken Burns documentary, Baseball. I escorted him around town before a screening...
By Jerome Holtzman From No Cheering in the Press Box 1973 I never felt that I was a bug-eyed fan as such. I wasn’t one of those who dreamed of being a sportswriter and going around the country traveling with ball players and getting into the games free and, oh, dear...
By Alex Belth Bronx Banter April 7, 2010 I met Pete Dexter last fall when he was in New York promoting his seventh novel, Spooner. Dexter was a wonderful newspaper columnist and is now one of our greatest novelists. First thing I noticed about him was that he was...
By Alex Belth Bronx Banter September 22, 2012 The greatest stretch in New York sports came in 1969–In 70. It started when the upstart Jets won the Super Bowl, continued that fall when the previously hapless Mets won the World Series, and was capped off the following...
By Alex Belth Bronx Banter May 23, 2003 The Fan Who Wasn’t There I worked for Joel and Ethan Coen for roughly one year, between the late summer of 1996 through the fall of 1997. I had been working as an apprentice film editor when I went to work for the guys, first as...
