From the time I learned to read, I loved reading about sports because that told me how people reasponded to stress and, unlike war, nobody got killed. When I graduated from Indiana University I did my two years in the army playing baseball and writing propaganda and came out looking for a job in media. My first taste of the big time was covering the Bill Mazeroski World Series for Newsday. For the next 45 years I have watched athletes--male and female--responding to pressure, both succeeding and failing. I covered World Series, Super Bowl, NBA and NHL championships, Final Fours, Indianapolis and NASCAR, and the atrocities of Little League and high school sports. I found common human elements in all. Twice, what I found, led to my nomination for the Pulitzer Prize. All the while I was hearing the stories of how black athletes had to endure so much injustice, which led me to interview and collect what went into "Carrying Jackie's Torch." What I learned stunned me and I tried to pass on to the reader things that have been hidden by time. Those events and cruelty should not be forgotten.
