William Littlefield (born July 1948) was the host of

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

and

WBUR WBUR-FM (90.9 FM) is a public radio station located in Boston, Massachusetts, owned by Boston University. It is the largest of three NPR member stations in Boston, along with WGBH and WUMB-FM and produces several nationally distributed program ...

's Only A Game program from its beginning in 1993 to July 2018, covering mainstream and offbeat

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and international sports. Littlefield joined NPR in 1984. A graduate of

Phillips Academy ("Not for Self") la, Finis Origine Pendet ("The End Depends Upon the Beginning") Youth From Every Quarter Knowledge and Goodness , address = 180 Main Street , city = Andover , state = Ma ...

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

and the

Harvard University Graduate School of Education The Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) is the education school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1920, it was the first school to grant the EdD degree and the first Harvard scho ...

, Littlefield taught English at

Curry College Curry College is a private college in Milton, Massachusetts. It was founded as the School of Elocution and Expression by Anna Baright in 1879. In 1885, it was taken over and renamed by Samuel Silas Curry. History Curry College was founded in ...

for 39 years and was a writer-in-residence there.https://www.wbur.org/inside/2018/06/07/wbur-announces-retirement-of-only-a-game-host-bill-littlefield WBUR Announces Retirement Of 'Only A Game' Host Bill Littlefield “Take Me Out”, Bill’s collection of sport-and-games-related doggerel, was published in 2014, and in January 2015,

Library of America The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors rangi ...

published ''The Best of W.C. Heinz'', which Bill edited, and for which he wrote the introduction. His other books include ''Only A Game'' and ''Keepers'', both collections of his radio and magazine work. Littlefield has also authored three novels, ''Prospect'' and ''The Circus in the Woods'', and ''Baseball Days and Champions: Stories of Ten Remarkable Athletes''. He was the guest editor for

Houghton Mifflin The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

’s

Best American Sports Writing ''The Best American Sports Writing'' was a yearly anthology of magazine articles on the subject of sports published in the United States. It started in 1991 as part of ''The Best American Series'' published by Houghton Mifflin and ceased publicati ...

in 1998, and his essay “The Gym At Third and Ross” was featured in the 2013 edition. He also writes a bi-monthly column in ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' in which he reviews sports books. In addition to penning his own books, Littlefield served as the guest editor of the 1998 edition of ''

The Best American Sports Writing ''The Best American Sports Writing'' was a yearly anthology of magazine articles on the subject of sports published in the United States. It started in 1991 as part of ''The Best American Series'' published by Houghton Mifflin and ceased publicati ...

''.

Books

* ''Prospect'' (1989) * ''Champions: Stories of Ten Remarkable Athletes'' (1993) * ''Baseball Days'' (1993) * ''Keepers'' (1998) * ''Best American Sports Writing'' (1998 ed.) * ''The Circus in the Woods'' (2002) * ''Fall Classics'' ed. (2003) * ''Only a Game'' (2007) * ''Take Me Out'' (2014) * ''The Top of His Game: The Best Sportswriting of W.C. Heinz'', ed. (2015) * ''Mercy'' (2022)

References

External links

More Information on Bill Littlefield
{{DEFAULTSORT:Littlefield, Bill NPR personalities Living people Place of birth missing (living people) American sportswriters 1948 births Yale University alumni Harvard Graduate School of Education alumni