It wasn’t until I decided to ask Ira Berkow on to discuss his latest book, Baseball’s Best Ever: A Half Century of Covering Hall of Famers, that I remembered that he wrote the foreword to The Jewish Olympics: The History of the Maccabiah Games (which violates one of my own rules for titles: it should be A History, rather than THE history, since, God willing, the Games will continue for many years). It just goes to show what a mensch Berkow is, for a Pulitzer Prize winner to lend a hand to a newcomer.
Co-author of Hank Greenberg: The Story of My Life, one of more than 25 books he has written or co-written (a sampling here), Berkow was also kind enough to spend some time talking about my own Greenberg project.
Can you imagine: To be able to write about what interests you and do it so well that you can spend a half century at it? To get to know people like Tom Seaver, Rod Carew, and Sandy Koufax, and many others. To be able to say “It’s Ira Berkow” on the phone and get someone to respond immediately. The saying goes, do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. I’m guessing there must have been times when Berkow didn’t love what he was doing, but all in all, I would take it.
One of the things that came to mind in for the Conversation was the way journalism has changed in 50 years, pre-Internet, pre-24 hour sports channels, heck, even pre-computers. In addition social issues have changed in the way we write about race and gender. Perhaps to some of you, that’s ancient history, but in a way doesn’t seem that long ago to me.
And just to show what a right guy I am, here’s a recent interview Berkow did with my fellow Montclair resident, Jonathan Altar.
is available on Amazon.com,
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