Posnanski, Joe 1967-

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Posnanski, Joe 1967-

PERSONAL:

Born 1967, in Cleveland, OH; married; wife's name Margo; children: Elizabeth and Katie.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Kansas City, MO. Office—Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64108. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Columnist and writer. Kansas City Star, Kansas City, MO, sports columnist, 1996—. Previously a columnist in Cincinnati, OH, and Augusta, GA.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Associated Press Sports Editors' Columnist of the Year Award (twice).

WRITINGS:

(With others) The Kansas Century: 100 Years of Championship Jayhawk Basketball, edited by David Halberstam, Andrews McMeel Publishing (Kansas City, MO), 1997.

The Good Stuff: Columns about the Magic of Sports, Kansas City Star Books (Kansas City, MO), 2001.

Lousy on Radio: Observations on This Sporting Life, Kansas City Star Books (Kansas City, MO), 2001.

The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip through Buck O'Neil's America, W. Morrow (New York, NY), 2007.

Also author of The Good Stuff, a collection of the author's sports columns.

SIDELIGHTS:

In his book, The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip through Buck O'Neil's America, sports columnist and longtime baseball fan Joe Posnanski tells of a road trip he took with legendary Negro League baseball player Buck O'Neil to Kansas City, where O'Neil played for the Kansas City Monarchs, and then on to New York and Minneapolis to appear at Buck O'Neil Day. Along the way, O'Neil, who died at the age of ninety-four in 2006, reminisces about his days as a player and his efforts to try to get Negro League baseball players into major league baseball's National Baseball Hall of Fame. Posnanski also writes of O'Neil's life, his powerful charisma and optimism, and his own desire to be in the Hall of Fame. However, O'Neil fell shy by one vote of being elected to the prestigious sports honor before his death. "Once I had taken the road trip with Buck and sat down to write the book, I knew I had a lot of great stories," Posnanski told Alex Beth for an interview on the Bronx Banter Web site. "There was never any doubt about that." In a review in Booklist, David Pitt wrote: "For baseball fans, the book is a treasure trove of history," later adding that he found the book "stirring, moving, and more than a little sad." A Kirkus Reviews contributor referred to The Soul of Baseball as "a worthy paean to an American legend."