Red: A Biography of Red Smith, The Life & Times of a Great American Writer

Profiles the Pulitzer Prize-winning sports writer whose career spanned decades and brought him together with such literary and sports heroes as Babe Ruth, Damon Runyon, Ring Lardner, and Tom Seaver

New York Times columnist Berkow has written a warm and revealing portrait of one of the finest American sportswriters of the 20th century. Smith knew every major sports personality from Babe Ruth to Muhammad Ali, and the book is full of entertaining and informative anecdotes (with many excerpts from Smith's own columns). Although this biography is basically a positive one, Berkow is to be admired for also seeing the unfavorable side of Smith's personality, specifically regarding racial issues: Berkow pinpoints Smith's failure to grasp the significance of Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in baseball and exposes his protection in print of friends he knew to be racists. Berkow also details Smith's rivalries (and petty jealousies) with his fellow New York scribes, especially Arthur Daley, the first sportswriter to win a Pulitzer Prize, which Smith was later awarded in 1976. Berkow recaps Smith's final years at the New York Times, his second marriage, his ongoing battles with Howard Cosell and Bowie Kuhn, and his death in 1982. Photos not seen by PW. First serial to New York Times Magazine; BOMC and QPB alternates.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Smith won the Pulitzer Prize in 1976. His career spanned 55 years, from the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1927 to the New York Herald Tribune in 1945 to the New York Times in 1971 until his death in 1982. The 18 hours a day he devoted to his column may have adversely affected his family life, but Smith reached his daily goal "to entertain . . . and capture the grace and drama and beauty and humor" in sports. Berkow quotes extensively from those columns as well as from letters and interviews with Smith's family and friends, creating an honest and intimate portrait of Smith's life and times. With this book, Berkow lovingly pays tribute to Smith, his colleague and mentor. Quality Paperback Book Club alternate. Jo DeLapo, Queens Borough P.L., New York
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.