Lawrence Robert Colton (born June 8, 1942), a one-time professional baseball player, is a writer and educator in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

, United States. He played as a pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1968; a shoulder separation ended his career.

Baseball career

Colton attended Westchester High School in Los Angeles CA now

Westchester Enriched Sciences Magnets Westchester Enriched Sciences Magnets (WESM) is a magnet high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District, West Region. It is located in Westchester (Los Angeles), a neighborhood adjacent to Los Angeles International Airport and bordered ...

and signed as a pitcher by the Philadelphia Phillies as an undrafted free agent in 1964 after playing college ball at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

, where he holds the single game strikeout record (19). Colton played for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1968."Larry Colton Statistics and History"
''baseball-reference.com''. Retrieved 2011-02-20. He played for Phillies farm team the

Eugene Emeralds The Eugene Emeralds (nicknamed the Ems) are a Minor League Baseball team in the northwest United States, based in Eugene, Oregon. The Emeralds are members of the Northwest League and are affiliated with the San Francisco Giants. Eugene plays thei ...

in 1965 when it was a

Class A-Short Season Class A Short Season (officially Short-Season A) was a level of play in Minor League Baseball in the United States from 1965 through 2020. In the hierarchy of minor league classifications, it was below Triple-A, Double-A, Class A-Advanced (cre ...

Northwest League The Northwest League is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in the Northwestern United States and Western Canada. A Class A Short Season league for most of its history, the league was promoted to High-A as part of Major League Basebal ...

team and again in 1969 when it was a triple-A Pacific Coast League team."About: Career Timeline,"
Larry Colton official website. Accessed August 3, 2014. A shoulder separation ended his big league career after a single appearance in relief for the Phillies.

Writing career

Larry Colton has published hundreds of magazine articles for publications including '' Esquire'', ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twi ...

'' and ''

Ladies Home Journal ''Ladies' Home Journal'' was an American magazine last published by the Meredith Corporation. It was first published on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States. In ...

''. Colton was the recipient of the 2013 Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy

Oregon Book Award The Oregon Book Awards are presented annually by Literary Arts to honor the "state’s finest accomplishments by Oregon writers who work in genres of poetry, fiction, graphic literature, drama, literary nonfiction, and literature for young readers ...

from Oregon Literary Arts, for his achievements as a writer and his role in founding Wordstock, literary festival and writing program.

''Idol Time''

Colton's first book, ''Idol Time'', examines the aftermath of the

Portland Trail Blazers The Portland Trail Blazers (colloquially known as the Blazers) are an American professional basketball team based in Portland, Oregon. The Trail Blazers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Con ...

' 1977 NBA championship, and although it reached primarily a regional audience, it foreshadowed the narrative approach Colton would apply in subsequent works.

''Goat Brothers''

Colton's 1993 book ''Goat Brothers'' examined the lives of Colton and a select group of his fraternity brothers at the

from their college days in the early 1960s until the end of the 1980s. ''Goat Brothers'' was well received, with ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'' saying that it "powerfully tells the stories of the five men's search for self-worth, their difficulty in communicating their feelings, and their anger toward women."

''Counting Coup''

Colton's third book, ''Counting Coup'', chronicled a dramatic season of a high school girls' basketball team in Montana that was competing for a state championship. The book received mostly positive reviews.

Katherine Dunn Katherine Karen Dunn (October 24, 1945 – May 11, 2016) was a novelist, journalist, voice artist, radio personality, book reviewer, and poet from Portland, Oregon. She is best known for her novel '' Geek Love'' (1989). She was also a prolific ...

, author of ''Geek Love'', observed that Colton placed his subjects "in the intricately tangled social contexts that lend weight and meaning far beyond the game." ''Counting Coup'' won the 2000 International E-Book of the Year Award, and the Frankfurt eBook Award in non-fiction in 2000.

''No Ordinary Joes''

''No Ordinary Joes'' is Colton's 2010 account of the sinking of the US Navy submarine '' USS Grenadier'', a little-known episode of World War II. The book is based on interviews with several of the survivors, and tells the interlocking stories of four shipmates on the ''Grenadier'', from their childhoods through enlistment, courtships and deployment, and on to the horrors of life in a Japanese slave labor camp. The book received mainly positive reviews for its narrative and storytelling.

''Southern League''

Colton's 2013 book ''Southern League'' tells the story of the 1964 Birmingham Barons, the first integrated professional baseball team in Alabama, in the context of the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

and the struggle for racial equality. The explores both the pennant race and Birmingham's complicated racial past, and the team's relationship with its young manager,

Haywood Sullivan Haywood Cooper Sullivan (December 15, 1930 – February 12, 2003) was an American college and professional baseball player who was a catcher, manager, general manager and club owner in Major League Baseball. From May 23, 1978, through Novembe ...

, a white Alabamian who went on to own the

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eigh ...

Richard Ben Cramer Richard Ben Cramer (June 12, 1950 – January 7, 2013) was an American journalist, author, and screenwriter. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1979 for his coverage of the Middle East. Biography Cramer was born and r ...

wrote of ''Southern League'': "When I read ''Counting Coup'', I was staggered by Larry Colton's ability to persuade a group of high school girls to share their heart's secrets, so I am not surprised that for ''Southern League'' he could get a bunch of aging baseball players to remember the hopes and fears of their minor league days. The breadth of Colton's reporting here, placing the Birmingham Barons' 1964 season squarely into the context of the civil rights era, is a narrative ''tour de force''."

Personal life

In 1965, Colton married Denise Loder, daughter of the actress

Hedy Lamarr Hedy Lamarr (; born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler; November 9, 1914 January 19, 2000) was an Austrian-born American film actress and inventor. A film star during Hollywood's golden age, Lamarr has been described as one of the greatest movie actress ...

. He has been married a total of four times. His daughter Wendy Colton is from his marriage to Loder, and his daughter Sarah Colton (Now Sarah Colton Seibel) is from his marriage to Katherine Jeffcott. Larry has three grandchildren.

References

External links

Larry Colton
(official website) {{DEFAULTSORT:Colton, Larry 1942 births Living people Major League Baseball pitchers Philadelphia Phillies players Eugene Emeralds players San Diego Padres (minor league) players Portland Mavericks players Baseball players from Los Angeles Writers from Portland, Oregon Florida Instructional League Phillies players Macon Peaches players Tacoma Cubs players Westchester High School (Los Angeles) alumni