"My idol growing up, all I wanted to be, was Stan Isaacs." --Tony Kornheiser "Stan Isaacs is directly responsible for my television career--and much of how I approached what I've said and whom I've said it about." --Keith Olbermann Iconoclastic and irreverent, Stan Isaacs was part of a generation that bucked the sports establishment with a skepticism for authority, an appreciation for absurdity, and a gift for placing athletes and events within the context of their tumultuous times. Isaacs draws on his trademark wink-and-a-grin approach to tell the story of the long-ago Brooklyn that formed him and a career that placed him amidst the major sporting events of his era. Mixing reminiscences with column excerpts, Isaacs recalls antics like stealing a Brooklyn Dodgers pennant after the team moved to Los Angeles and his many writings on Paul Revere's horse. But Isaacs also reveals the crusading and humanist instincts that gave Black athletes like Muhammad Ali a rare forum to express their views and celebrated the oddball, unsung Mets over the straitlaced Yankees. Insightful and hilarious, Out of Left Field is the long-awaited memoir of the influential sportswriter and his adventures in the era of Jim Brown, Arthur Ashe, and the Amazin' Mets.
Stan Isaacs (1929-2013) was a sportswriter and pioneering sports media reporter. His longtime column, "Out of Left Field," appeared in Newsday. He is the author of Ten Moments That Shook the Sports World. Aram Goudsouzian is the Bizot Family Professor of History at the University of Memphis. He is the author of The Men and the Moment: The Election of 1968 and the Rise of Partisan Politics in America.
Introduction Aram Goudsouzian A Note on Terminology Prologue: The Shots Heard 'Round the World The Chipmunks Chipmunkery Family Ties School Daze Sportswriter The Daily Compass A Wayward Pressman Joining Newsday The Early Mets The Alvin Dark Controversy Cassius Clay Was a Grand Old Name Jim Brown and Me Race Matters Hitler, Stalin, and O'Malley The Purloined Pennant Baseball Characters Olympic Hypocrisy Perfect Games Fighters and Writers The Sporting Hemingway Naked Romances Mea Culpas Righties and Lefties Triple Threats Newspaper Lore Forgive Us Our Press Passes Inside Stuff Flights of Fancy Stuntsmanship Leaving Newsday Life in Isaacstan A Craft and a Life Index
"Stan was the best of us: smart, funny, compassionate, a rare sportswriter who not only understood the games but recognized they only made true sense in a larger social context. Do I love him because he took me under his wing at my first spring training or because sixty-odd years later he is still such fun to read?"--Robert Lipsyte, former New York Times sports columnist
