Full Swing: Hits, Runs, and Errors in a Writer's Life

The path from Springfield Avenue on Chicago’s West Side—where Ira Berkow once sold stockings at the old Maxwell Street marketplace—to a career at The New York Times and a share of the Pulitzer Prize was anything but predictable. Yet that is the remarkable journey Berkow recounts in this lively, heartfelt, and frequently humorous memoir. Along the way, he became far more than a sportswriter, emerging as one of America’s most perceptive chroniclers of sports, equally drawn to human character as to box scores and standings.

Central to that evolution was his father, whose influence helped instill in Ira a lasting respect for truth, justice, and moral clarity. But he was also shaped by a series of mentors and inspirations who helped steer a young man still searching for his purpose. Among them was the legendary columnist Red Smith, who patiently critiqued Berkow’s early work, and Red Holzman, the Hall of Fame coach of the New York Knicks, whose example resonated well beyond the basketball court.

Woven throughout Full Swing is an extraordinary lineup of figures—E. B. White, Muhammad Ali, Saul Bellow, Ted Williams, P. G. Wodehouse, Michael Jordan—whose presence reflects the breadth of Berkow’s interests and the lessons he drew from them. Honest, insightful, and richly entertaining, this memoir captures both triumphs and missteps, offering readers the wit, wisdom, and grace they have long associated with his writing.