I don't plan on writing biographies of great sports stars who are still playing ball. But I did write one on Jackie Robinson, who was playing ball in the 20th century.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I have written some poetry and two prose books about baseball, but if I had been a rich man, I probably would not have written many of the magazine essays that I have had to do. But, needing to write magazine essays to support myself, I looked to things that I cared about and wanted to write about, and certainly baseball was one of them.
When I was a kid, my father brought home the autobiography of Sid Luckman, the great Chicago Bears quarterback - probably an extra copy from the sports department where he worked. It was the first sports biography I ever read.
There's certainly a large literature around baseball in the U.S.
For my books of nonfiction I write about subjects I find fascinating. I've been a Yankees and a Lou Gehrig fan for decades, so I wrote 'Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man.' It's more the story of his great courage than of his baseball playing. Children face all sorts of challenges, and it's my hope that some will be inspired by the courage of Lou Gehrig.
My real heroes have always been sportswriters.
My sporting hero was Drazen Petrovic, the NBA basketball player, who was killed in a car accident in 1993. He was a good friend, an unbelievable player, and I dedicated my Wimbledon win to him.
For a long time, I'd been vaguely fascinated by the idea that Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic and Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in the same summer.
As a kid I was fascinated with sports, and I loved sports more than anything else. The first books I read were about sports, like books about Baseball Joe, as one baseball hero was called.
I want to be remembered as a ballplayer who gave all I had to give.
I am a huge fan of biographies. What I'm always looking for is a story. I want a story I have never heard from anyone else.
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