Edward Hershey

Here are excerpts of reviews for "The Scorekeeper" Edward Hershey's acclaimed new memoir:

“Edward Hershey pretends to be a ‘Scorekeeper’ – a man on the sidelines – but his memoir betrays him. He’s abandoned the stands and galloped wholeheartedly onto the playing fields of post-war America. As a Brooklyn boy and then a newspaperman and PR professional, he leads you every step of the way. You see that spaldeen fly off the broomstick, smell the mustard at Ebbets Field and hear those editors shout. It’s a bravura performance.”

-- John Darnton, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times correspondent and author of the acclaimed memoir Almost a Family

“So maybe Edward Hershey couldn't hit a baseball, but The Scorekeeper is a home run from start to finish, an insightful and engaging depiction of two bygone eras — growing up in mid-century Brooklyn and reporting for a thriving daily newspaper.”

-- Gabrielle Glaser, journalist and author of the NYT bestseller Her Best-Kept Secret

"If journalism is the first draft of history, then an entertaining memoir written by a hard-hitting journalist like Edward Hershey must be the second, third or fourth draft. It’s a revealing personal history of post-war America that lets us look over his shoulder as he relives what he experienced firsthand when the news was breaking and he had deadlines to meet… The stories he tells in The Scorekeeper make him a winner for those who value the contributions made by the Fourth Estate as they try to speak truth to power.”

— Spencer Rumsey, Long Island Press senior editor

“The Scorekeeper offers a rare glimpse into the life of a top-shelf American journalist. Edward Hershey’s elegantly written memoir interlaces stories he covered on the job with the stories of his life, from klutzy boyhood stickball games to interviews with the likes of Mickey Mantle. But the soul of this tale is rooted in Brooklyn, Hershey’s strong, struggling Jewish family, and lessons learned from an honorable life, one tally at a time.”

-- Bryan Denson, award-winning investigative reporter and author of The Spy’s Son.

“It’s a fascinating memoir of urban childhood and newspapering as it was before everything began to fall apart. The early portions have sort of a Woody Allen 'Radio Days' feel, and the newspaper stuff is right on. The reader gets a strong sense of the sort of larger-than-life characters who populated the business in the glory days.”

-- Dan Lynch, former Albany Times-Union Managing Editor and author of Running with the Machine: A Journalist’s Eye-Opening Plunge into Politics

“I loved it. An easy read. Nice, brisk style, and of course it reminded me of folks I’d all but forgotten.…I hope it sells a million copies.”

-- Jon Margolis, erstwhile Chicago Tribune Washington correspondent, columnist and sportswriter and author of The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964,

“An amazing set of tales that provide humor, humanity, journalism and a sense of the values we need to appreciate what America was and can be again .... at a time of alt-facts and mean spirited leadership, Ed the "Scorekeeper" reflects the best and hope for us.”

-- Jerry Cohen, AARP Oregon State Director

"Hershey's stories of his coming-of-age as a precocious New York sportswriter in the 1950s and 1960s are richly detailed and sprinkled with humor and wisdom."

-- Lee Lowenfish, author of the award-winning biography Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman

“Hershey combines storytelling, autobiography, detail and writing skill to create a wonderful reading experience. I was brought to Brooklyn, to the New York newspaper world, to the classic decades of the 50s, 60s and 70s with a deftness that made The Scorekeeper an easy and enjoyable read. The breadth of emotions and events was extraordinary and I now feel that I have much greater knowledge of the times I lived.’

-- Dick Whitmore, revered Colby College coach and charter member, New England and Maine Basketball Halls of Fame

“From his childhood in Brooklyn through his young adult efforts to become a sportswriter and on to his transition from sports to hard-hitting news reporting, a great read! And all the more enjoyable because of Hershey’s sense of humor and ability to tell a good story.”

-- Rick Bennett, former director of government relations, UNLV and AARP Oregon

“I loved seeing all the old names and getting a sense again of what fun it was at Newsday in the ‘70s. The writing is solid: clear, direct, straightforward---journalistic in the best sense of the word. I raced through it in about three days.”

-- Peter W. Goodman, Associate Professor of Journalism at Hofstra University and longtime Newsday critic and editor.

“The Scorekeeper is not only a colorful social history of midcentury Jewish life in New York City, but the story of a kid with moxie and smarts who nearly always lands on his feet.”

-- Sheryl Kornman, longtime reporter and editor, Tucson Citizen and Newsday.

“The Scorekeeper hits just the right tone and creates a remembrance of things past that works. I loved the Brooklyn stuff and the whimsy and modesty that suffused the book. I thought the postscript was a wonderful and very welcome conceit. Hershey tells us what happened to at least some of the people who populated his life, closing the open threads that would otherwise be left hanging. His Brooklyn stuff is shared with a self-deprecating tone that is both loving and wistful.”

-- David Steinberg, President Emeritus, Long Island University.

***

Sports were young Edward Hershey’s passion, a love that withstood his athletic ineptitude and the departure of his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers. It made him the journalistic equivalent of a gym rat who wrote for a big-city newspaper at 15 and covered the major leagues when he was 22 before swapping the best seats in the house for a reporter’s front-row view of a decade of turbulent events in the '70's. Then he turned in his press card for a silver shield and a new role that made him a regular presence on New York City airwaves and gave him a new slant on journalism

As a young sportswriter Hershey covered a fading Mickey Mantle and emerging Tom Seaver, brash Joe Namath and cerebral Bill Bradley, enigmatic Pancho Gonzales and introspective Arthur Ashe. He wrote a book with “Miracle Met” Cleon Jones before switching to the news reporting that won awards for coverage of a deadly bus accident and exposure of an election campaign scam and broke stories on the notorious “Son of Sam” case and the Attica prison revolt and led to a book on hostage negotiation.

Hershey spent six eventful years as spokesman for New York City jails, coping with escapes, suicides, violence and the impact of AIDS and went on to direct communication units at six colleges and universities including Colby, Reed and Cornell. Along the way, he initiated a successful union drive, taught at two universities, orchestrated the survival of a Shakespearean theater, wrote a country antiques column, was elected a city alderman, and announced college basketball games.

For 40 years, Hershey has served on the George Polk Awards committee, honoring the best and brightest in journalism. He and his wife, Leah, a hand weaver and retired college administrator, live in Portland, Oregon, where he was spokesman for the state’s largest union, chaired the City Club’s weekly forum, served on the Independent Police Review Board and is on the board of the Storytellers Guild. His third book, "The Scorekeeper," a memoir due out in late 2016, is an irreverent coming-of-age tale, a perceptive take on reporting from the stadium to the statehouse, and an unsparing reflection on an era of urban tension and suburban sprawl, anti-war activism and a war on poverty, rampant crime and imperfect justice, political chicanery and prosecutorial abuse.