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| ==Writing career== | ==Writing career== | ||
| A native of ] and a 1974 graduate of ], Lupica first came to prominence as a sportswriter in ]. Lupica wrote “The Sporting Life” column at ] for ten years beginning in the late 1980s, and is currently writing a regular column for ]. He has also written for ], ], ], and ], and has received numerous awards, including, in 2003, the ] Award from the ].<ref name=speaker> from ''Greater Talent Network.''</ref> | A native of ] and a 1974 graduate of ], Lupica first came to prominence as a sportswriter in ]. Lupica wrote “The Sporting Life” column at ] for ten years beginning in the late 1980s, and is currently writing a regular column for ]. He has also written for ], ], ], and ], and has received numerous awards, including, in 2003, the ] Award from the ].<ref name=speaker> from ''Greater Talent Network.''</ref> | ||
| Reviewing a 1988 collection of his newspaper work, the ]' Diane Cole wrote: "Mr. Lupica's wit can be devastating, but he is at his best when paying tribute to sports greats like the hurdler ] or telling a story as simple as that of an avid Mets fan who happens to be blind.… Least successful are Mr. Lupica's one-line quips, taken from his Sunday column. A few of them are tasteless asides that mar an otherwise engaging and often exhilarating collection."<ref>Diane Cole, from the ''New York Times,'' 29 May 1988.</ref> | |||
| ===Books=== | ===Books=== | ||
Revision as of 12:10, 29 February 2008
Mike Lupica (born 1952) is an American newspaper columnist, best known for his provocative sports commentary in the New York Daily News and his appearances on ESPN.
Writing career
A native of New Hampshire and a 1974 graduate of Boston College, Lupica first came to prominence as a sportswriter in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Lupica wrote “The Sporting Life” column at Esquire magazine for ten years beginning in the late 1980s, and is currently writing a regular column for Travel + Leisure Golf. He has also written for Golf Digest, Parade, ESPN The Magazine, and Men’s Journal, and has received numerous awards, including, in 2003, the Jim Murray Award from the National Football Foundation.
Books
In addition to his newspaper work, Lupica has authored numerous books, which have received generally positive reviews. He co-wrote autobiographies with Reggie Jackson and Bill Parcells and collaborated with screenwriter William Goldman on Wait Till Next Year, and Mad as Hell: How Sports Got Away From the Fans and How We Get It Back. Lupica also wrote the amorous The Summer of ’98: When Homers Flew, Records Fell, and Baseball Reclaimed America, which detailed how the 1998 Yankees and the Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa home run chase had allowed him to share a love for baseball with his son.
New York Press publisher Russ Smith has described Lupica's writing as "excellent on baseball, save his high-mule moral indignation about steroids." But as a prominent sportswriter decrying steroid abuse by athletes, Lupica has come under fire from his peers. Yahoo Sports' Dan Wetzel noted, "I get that people roll their eyes when someone such as Mike Lupica screeches each Sunday morning about Bonds and fails to note he wrote a schmaltzy tome on McGwire and Sosa." The New York Times' Will Leitch wrote, "Sportswriters can cast their votes of "protest" all they want — and we can reserve our right to suspect they’re full of bunk. Mike Lupica of The Daily News has been a fierce voice against McGwire and Sosa and their "hypocrisy," but he made a tidy sum off 'Summer of ’98,' his memoir about following that home run chase with his sons." Bill Simmons made much the same point in his popular ESPN.com column. Fox Sports' Jason Whitlock sarcastically wrote about reporters' current claims that they'd been unaware of steroid use in 1990s baseball, specifically citing Roger Clemens as "Mike Lupica's Mark McGwire mulligan, the pawn Lupica can use to detract attention from fawning book."
However, in an indiscreet 2006 interview, Whitlock had blamed Lupica for relegating him from ESPN's "Sports Reporters" program, where he'd been a regular. Calling Lupica "an insecure, mean-spirited busybody," Whitlock claimed that Lupica and the show's producer were "mostly upset that I wouldn't participate in their Barry Bonds witch hunt and help them single Bonds out as the creator of steroids." The interview, which also criticized Scoop Jackson, resulted in Whitlock's dismissal from ESPN, with a network spokesman stating, "These were personal attacks that went too far."
Novels
Lupica is also a novelist; his work includes mysteries involving fictional NYC television reporter "Peter Finley." One of them, Dead Air, was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Mystery and adapted into a television movie called Money, Power, Murder.
He has written a novel for younger audiences called Travel Team. Lupica’s Bump and Run and Wild Pitch were best sellers. 2003 saw a sequel to Bump and Run, entitled Red Zone." In April 2006, his second children's book, Heat, was published by Philomel. Heat is a fictional story based on the Danny Almonte scandal in the South Bronx Little League. In October 2006, Lupica's third children's novel, Miracle on 49th Street, was published. "Summer Ball," a sequel to "Travel Team," was released in 2007.
Television & radio work
In addition to his printed work, since 1988 Lupica has been one of the rotating pundits on The Sports Reporters on ESPN. He also briefly hosted an unsuccessful television chat program, The Mike Lupica Show, on ESPN2, as well as a short-lived radio show on WFAN in New York City in the mid-1990s. He has been a recurring guest on the CBS Morning News, Good Morning America and The MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour. Lupica has made frequent radio appearances on Imus in the Morning since the early 1980s.
Personal life
Lupica is a self-described "serial Little League coach" with his three sons and a daughter. He and his family live in New Canaan, Connecticut. (He is not the same Mike Lupica who hosts a radio program on WFMU.)
Lupica described his fundamental approach to sportswriting in a press release:
My whole deal on sports is that I still go to the ballpark to celebrate sports, but Bill Belichick and Barry Bonds and guys like that keep getting in my way.
Bibliography
- Reggie! (1984)
- Dead Air (1986)
- Parcells: An Autobiography of the Biggest Giant of Them All (1987)
- Wait 'Till Next Year, (with William Goldman, 1988)
- Shooting From The Lip: Essays, Columns, Quips, and Gripes in the Grand Tradition of Dyspeptic Sports Writing (1988)
- Extra Credits (1990)
- Limited Partner (1990)
- Jump (1995)
- Mad As Hell: How Sports Got Away From the Fans and How We Get It Back (1996)
- Summer of '98: When Homers Flew, Records Fell, and Baseball Reclaimed America (1999)
- Bump and Run (2000)
- Full Court Press (2001)
- Wild Pitch (2002)
- Red Zone (2003)
- Too Far (2004)
- Travel Team (2004)
- Heat (2005)
- Miracle on 49th Street (2006)
- Hot Hand (2007)
- Two-Minute Drill (2007)
- Summer Ball (2007)
- The Big Field (2008)
- Ballers(2008)
Also:
- Yankees '98: Best Ever! (a compendium of Daily News coverage, 1999)
- Best American Sports Writing 2005 (co-edited by, 2005)
- Fathers & Sons & Sports: An Anthology of Great American Sports Writing (edited by, 2008)
References
- ^ Speaker Page: Mike Lupica from Greater Talent Network.
- Wait Till Next Year from Amazon.com (listing).
- Summer of ’98 from Amazon.com (listing).
- Russ Smith, "Animal Droppings: The Times' horse sense" from the New York Press, 2007.
- http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=dw-bondsletters080907&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/opinion/11leitch.html
- http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070103&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab5pos2
- http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7590074/Clemens-reeks-of-lies,-but-can-you-fault-him
- http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/richard_deitsch/11/09/media.circus/index.html
- http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/category/nfl/2006/09/29/real-talk-debuts-and-jason-whitlock-promises-never-to-back-down
- http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2006-09-26-hiestand-tv_x.htm
- http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060927.TRUTH27/TPStory/TPSports/
- http://www.nypost.com/seven/09292006/sports/turner_calls_cal_sports_andrew_marchand.htm
- http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=solomon_george&id=2610531
- The Sports Reporters on TV.com.
- "Press release" from Boats, Books, and Brushes, 19 May 2003
- "Mike Lupica" from the Lavin Agency.