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Jane Leavy

Goodreads Author

Born

The United States

Website

https://www.janeleavy.com

Twitter

janeleavy1

Genre

Sports, Biography, Fiction

Member Since

June 2018

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Jane Leavy is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Last Boy, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy and the comic novel Squeeze Play, which Entertainment Weekly called “the best novel ever written about baseball.” Her latest book is The Big Fella. She was a staff writer at The Washington Post from 1979 to1988, first in the sports section, then writing for the style section. She covered baseball, tennis, and the Olympics for the paper. She wrote features for the style section about sports, politics, and pop culture, including, most memorably, a profile of Mugsy Bogues, the 5’3″ guard for the Washington Wizards, which was longer than he is tall.

Before joining the The Washington Post, she was a staff writer at womenSports and Self magazine Jane Leavy is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Last Boy, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy and the comic novel Squeeze Play, which Entertainment Weekly called “the best novel ever written about baseball.” Her latest book is The Big Fella. She was a staff writer at The Washington Post from 1979 to1988, first in the sports section, then writing for the style section. She covered baseball, tennis, and the Olympics for the paper. She wrote features for the style section about sports, politics, and pop culture, including, most memorably, a profile of Mugsy Bogues, the 5’3″ guard for the Washington Wizards, which was longer than he is tall.

Before joining the The Washington Post, she was a staff writer at womenSports and Self magazines. She has written for many publications, including The New York Times, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, The Village Voice, and The New York Daily News. Leavys work has been anthologized in many collections, including Best Sportswriting, Coach: 25 Writers Reflect on People Who Made a Difference, Child of Mine: Essays on Becoming a Mother, Nike Is a Goddess: The History of Women in Sports, Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend: Women Writers on Baseball, A Kind of Grace: A Treasury of Sportswriting by Women, and Making Words Dance: Reflections on Red Smith, Journalism and Writing.

She grew up on Long Island where she pitched briefly and poorly for the Blue Jays of the Roslyn Long Island Little League. On her parents first date, her father, a water boy for the 1927 New York football Giants, took her mother to a Brooklyn College football game. She retaliated by taking him to Loehmanns after the final whistle. It was a template for their 63-year union. As a child, Jane Leavy worshipped Mickey Mantle from the second-floor ballroom in the Concourse Plaza Hotel where her grandmothers synagogue held services on the High Holidays.

Jane Leavy attended Barnard College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she wrote her masters essay (later published in The Village Voice) on Red Smith, the late sports columnist for The New York Times, who was her other childhood hero.

She has two adult children, Nick and Emma, and she lives in Washington, DC, and Truro, Massachusetts. ...more

21 posts
Jane Leavy's Blog

Forbes, Newsday and The Voice of San Diego

Forbes: Epic Babe Ruth Bio By Jane Leavy Captures His Life And Times Jane Leavy’s second book, a critically acclaimed, New York Times best-selling biography of Mickey Mantle in 2010, has sold 211,000 copies in hardback and 60,000 in paperback. Such commercial success in today’s publishing world is like a big leaguer hitting 85 homers in a […]

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Published on October 29, 2018 06:15

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Jane Leavy’s books

Average rating: 3.96 · 10,596 ratings · 711 reviews · 9 distinct works • Similar authors

	Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy 4.02 avg rating — 5,233 ratings — published 2002 — 24 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood 3.92 avg rating — 5,027 ratings — published 2010 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Best American Sports Writing 2011 by Jane Leavy (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Glenn Stout (Goodreads Author) (Editor) 3.84 avg rating — 153 ratings — published 2011 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Squeeze Play: A Novel 3.23 avg rating — 82 ratings — published 1990 — 15 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created 3.72 avg rating — 43 ratings — published 2018 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tarbrushed 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Good Book: Writers Reflect on Favorite Bible Passages by Andrew Blauner (Editor), André Aciman (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) , Ian Caldwell (Contributor) 3.55 avg rating — 53 ratings — published 2015 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Out of My League: The Classic Account of an Amateur's Ordeal in Professional Baseball by George Plimpton, Tom Wolfe (Introduction) , Jane Leavy (Goodreads Author) (Foreword) 3.68 avg rating — 186 ratings — published 1983 — 15 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Grantland Quarterly No. 5 by Bill Simmons, Jane Leavy (Goodreads Author) , Chuck Klosterman 3.53 avg rating — 45 ratings — published 2013 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Jane Leavy wrote a new blog post Forbes, Newsday and The Voice of San Diego Forbes: Epic Babe Ruth Bio By Jane Leavy Captures His Life And Times Jane Leavy’s second book, a critically acclaimed, New York Times best-selling... Read more of this blog post »
Oct 30, 2018 05:55AM · like

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Quotes by Jane Leavy

“In the immortal words of Willie Stargell, trying to hit Koufax was like “trying to drink coffee with a fork.”
― Jane Leavy, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy

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“When Mantle faced the cameras for the last time a month before his death, he was a husk of a man, shrunken by cancer. The stiff brim of his 1995 All-Star Game cap dwarfed his brow. There was no Mantle Roll. He looked straight into the cameras and told us all, 'Don't be like me.'

The transformation of The Mick parallels the transformation of American culture from willful innocence to knowing cynicism. To tell his story is to tell ours.”
― Jane Leavy, The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood

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“It’s like being in the ballpark with Jesus.”
― Jane Leavy, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy

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Jane Leavy

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21 posts
Jane Leavy's Blog

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Jane’s Recent Updates

Quotes by Jane Leavy

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Jane Leavy’s Followers (48)

Jane’s Bookshelves

Jane’s Friends

Jane Leavy

Goodreads Author

21 postsJane Leavy's Blog

Combine EditionsJane Leavy’s books

Upcoming Events

rssJane’s Recent Updates

Quotes by Jane Leavy

Topics Mentioning This Author

Jane’s Friend Comments

Flag Abuse

21 posts
Jane Leavy's Blog

Combine Editions
Jane Leavy’s books

rss
Jane’s Recent Updates