An Accidental Sportswriter: A Memoir

Celebrated sports journalist Robert Lipsyte—the New York Times’ longtime lead sports columnist—mines pure gold from his long and very eventful career to bring readers a memoir like no other. An enthralling book, as much about personal relationships and the culture of sports as the athletes and teams themselves, An Accidental Sportswriter interweaves stories from Lipsyte’s life and the events he covered to explore the connections between the games we play and the lives we lead.

Robert Lipsyte has been there—from the Mets’ first Spring Training to the fight that made Muhammad Ali an international icon to the current steroids scandals that rewired our view of sports—and in An Accidental Sportswriter he offers a fresh and refreshing view of the world of professional athletes as seen through the eyes of a journalist who always managed to remain independent of our jock-obsessed culture.

A career spent telling it like it is delivers unforgettable stories:

• Behind-the-Scenes Sports: From the cigarette-charred desks of The New York Times to the locker rooms of Yankee Stadium, an unflinching look at how the sausage of sports journalism gets made.
• Athlete Hero Worship: Candid encounters with Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio that peel back the layers of myth to reveal the complicated men underneath the uniforms.
• Muhammad Ali Up Close: A ringside seat for the evolution of Cassius Clay into Muhammad Ali, chronicling the champion’s controversial politics, religious transformation, and magnetic personality over decades.
• Sports and Civil Rights: The explosive story of collaborating with comedian and activist Dick Gregory on his landmark autobiography, Nigger, during the height of the civil rights movement.