Joe Posnanski

Joe Posnanski

Posnanski in 2007.
Born January 8, 1967
Cleveland, Ohio
Occupation Sports columnist
Author
Spouse(s) Margo
Children Elizabeth, Katie

Joe Posnanski (/pəzˈnænski/; nicknamed "Poz" and "Joe Po"; born January 8, 1967)[1] is an American sports journalist. A former senior columnist for Sports Illustrated (where he wrote a blog, Curiously Long Posts) and columnist for The Kansas City Star, he currently is the national columnist for NBC Sports and also writes for his personal blog, Joe Blog.

Early life

Posnanski grew up in South Euclid and moved to Charlotte during high school. He studied accounting, but later switched his major to English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.[2]

Journalism

Posnanski began his journalism career as a multi-use reporter and an editor at The Charlotte Observer. He also worked as columnist at The Cincinnati Post and The Augusta Chronicle before taking a columnist job at The Kansas City Star.[3] Posnanski worked at the Star full-time from October 1996 to August, 2009. He was a Senior Writer for Sports Illustrated until April 2012, when he announced that he would work for Sports on Earth, a new internet joint venture between USA Today and Major League Baseball Advanced Media.[4] His first column for Sports on Earth was published online on August 26, 2012.[5] In February 2013, he became the national columnist for NBC Sports.

A selection of his columns about the magic of sports is compiled in the book, The Good Stuff. His book The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America[6] was published by William Morrow & Company and won the CASEY Award as best baseball book of 2007.[7] Another book, about the Big Red Machine, titled The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, was published in 2009 and reached Number 17 on the New York Times Bestseller List.[8] Posnanski also wrote a biography of longtime Penn State football coach Joe Paterno[9] for Simon & Schuster, which was released on August 21, 2012 and debuted at Number 1 on the New York Times Bestseller List.[10] Deadspin was critical of Posnanski's "less than judicious" support of Paterno in the Penn State sex abuse scandal.[11]

In October 2007 he debuted his new website at www.joeposnanski.com, later converted to a blog and titled Joe Blog. In 2011, his blog post on The Promise was named one of "Nearly 100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism" by The Atlantic.[12] The blog was also nominated for a National Magazine Award.[13]

Journalism awards

In 2002 and 2005, Posnanski was named the best sports columnist in America by the Associated Press Sports Editors.[14] In all, he has been nominated 26 times for APSE Awards,[3] and he has won in the features and projects categories. In 2009, he won the National Headliners Award for sports column writing, and he won a second National Headliners Award in 2011 for Online Writing. Posnanski has won many other awards including the Missouri Press Association award for best sports columnist in Missouri ten times, and he was the first recipient of the Joe McGuff journalism award, presented by the Greater Kansas City Sports Commission.[15]

In 2011, the Baseball Bloggers Alliance named Posnanski the inaugural winner of their online writer of the year award. The BBA also announced that they will rename the award "The Joe Posnanski Award."[16] At the Blogs With Balls 4 conference, he won best sportswriter in the first Untitled Sports Media Award Project (USMAP). In January 2012, the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association (NSSA) named Posnanski National Sportswriter of the Year.

Miscellaneous

He is on the 10-person voting panel for the Fielding Bible Awards, an alternative to the Gold Glove Award in Major League Baseball[17]

Personal life

He and his wife, Margo, live in Charlotte, North Carolina. They have two daughters, Elizabeth and Katie.[18] In a podcast, with Michael Schur, published November 14, 2014, Joe revealed that he is "definitely a seedless watermelon guy now at this point in my life."[19] Additionally, Joe has stated on the podcast that his personal fears include astraphobia, ventriloquist dummies, and "guys in the back of your car."[20]

References

  1. ↑ "A Boulevard Called Chagrin". si.com.
  2. ↑ Davis, Noah (September 30, 2009). "SO WHAT DO YOU DO, JOE POSNANSKI, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED SENIOR WRITER?". Mediabistro.com. Retrieved November 21, 2014.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "About Joe". Joe Blogs.
  4. ↑ Cohen, Noam (April 30, 2012). "The Coach, the Biographer and the Last Chapter". The New York Times. p. D1. Archived from the original on May 1, 2012.
  5. ↑ "Welcome to Sports on Earth". Sports on Earth. August 26, 2012.
  6. ↑ The Soul of Baseball on Amazon.com
  7. ↑ "CASEY Award" on SpitballMag.com (Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine)
  8. ↑ Schuessler, Jennifer (October 4, 2009). "Hardcover Nonfiction". The New York Times.
  9. ↑ Schweber, Nate; Pérez-Peña, Richard (November 10, 2011). "From Coach to Case Study in Penn State Classrooms". The New York Times.
  10. ↑ "'Paterno' book sales drop off". ESPN.com. October 6, 2012.
  11. ↑ http://deadspin.com/5879169/a-plea-to-joe-posnanski-stop-writing-mealy+mouthed-nonsense-about-joe-paterno
  12. ↑ "Nearly 100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism". The Atlantic. May 4, 2011.
  13. ↑ "National Magazine Award". Digital Ellie.
  14. ↑ "APSE contest: Posnanski named top columnist". The Dallas Morning News. March 28, 2006. Retrieved 2011-08-27.
  15. ↑ "KC Commission" (PDF). Joe McGuff Award.
  16. ↑ "Writer Award". Baseball Bloggers Alliance.
  17. ↑ Gleeman, Aaron (November 1, 2010). "Yadier Molina leads fifth annual "Fielding Bible Awards"". NBCSports.com. Retrieved November 18, 2010. Voted on by a 10-person panel that includes Bill James, Peter Gammons, Joe Posnanski, Rob Neyer, and John Dewan as well as the entire video scouting team at Baseball Info Solutions, the award sets out to recognize the best defensive player at each position, regardless of league.
  18. ↑ "About Joe Posnanski". Sports on Earth.
  19. ↑ http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/the-poscast-episode-9-pie-fight/
  20. ↑ http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/the-poscast-episode-11-fear-itself/. Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links