Writing
Up Next: G. Washington, America's Master Politician
I’ve just signed with a Penguin imprint, New American Library, to write a book about The Big Guy — GWash himself, the Master of Mount Vernon, the man-myth who was…
Read More225th Birthday of America's Bill of Rights!
I’m delighted to be among the first to proclaim the 225th anniversary of the ratification of America’s Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Those amendments protect…
Read MoreWinning by Losing: Babe Ruth at the 1921 World Series
When Babe Ruth led the New York Yankees into their first World Series ever in 1921 — 95 years ago — he had just finished what may have been the…
Read MoreBabe Ruth: Know your enemy!
Babe Ruth was a great pitcher before he was a great hitter. Doesn’t it seem likely that one of the reasons he was a great hitter was because he had been a…
Read MoreWhy Do Babe Ruth Movies Mostly Suck?
With less than three weeks to go until my novel concerning Babe Ruth debuts, The Babe Ruth Deception, I find myself wondering why Babe Ruth movies are so bad. In…
Read MoreBabeWatch: Barnstorming Against Negro League Teams
Partly because he loved to play baseball, partly because he loved to spend money, Babe Ruth played lots of exhibition games in the offseason across the country and in the…
Read MoreTheater of the Near-Real: Cop Chases in L.A.
It’s completely weird. They can go on forever, the only time Southern California TV stations never break for commercials. The first one on Monday morning lasted more than two hours.…
Read MoreHamilton’s Pulitzer Prize: Listen to the Words
Now that he’s won the Pulitzer Prize for it, maybe we’ll pay attention to the words of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, the genre-smashing Broadway hit that costs a monthly car payment…
Read MoreTriumph of the Book!
The recent press accounts have been heartening to devotees of the book — which had been disdained as the “printed book” or “hard-copy book,” or even the “dead tree book.”…
Read MoreEight Knockout Reads from 2015
Year’s end brings a geyser of lists of the year’s “best books.” I choose to modify this approach to report the best books that I read over the last year,…
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