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Author David Halberstam killed in crash

In 1999 Dex gave me the book Summer of '49 for my birthday.  It is still the best baseball book I've ever read.  The author, David Halberstam writes so eloquently about the ballplayers, the era and himself.  

In 1948, my father suffered the first of two heart attacks, and he recovered only partially.  There was a sense of foreboding in our home.  There was good reason for it -- a year later he died.

No wonder, then, that the world of baseball seemed infinitely more real and appealing than the world around me.  I could understand what was happening in baseball.

Halberstam interviewed most of the players of the Yankees and Red Sox forty years later.  He describes the season as he saw it and through stories from the ballplayers.  It really is an excellent read.

I was fortunate enough to hear him speak at a graduation at the University of Southern California in 2002.  Even though I had already graduated his message to the students struck a chord in me.