Out of Left Field

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 GoudsouzianA Note on Terminology Prologue: The Shots Heard ’Round the World The Chipmunks Chipmunkery Family Ties School Daze Sportswriter The Daily CompassA Wayward Pressman Joining NewsdayThe 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 NewsdayLife 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