Leonard Koppett (September 15, 1923 – June 22, 2003) was an American sportswriter. Born in Moscow as Leonard Kopeliovich, Koppett moved with his family from Moscow, Russia to the United States when he was five years old. They lived in The Bronx,

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, a block away from Yankee Stadium. Koppett served in the United States Army before graduating from Columbia University in 1946. He then worked as a

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and

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for the ''

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'', the '' New York Post'', '' The New York Times'', the '' Peninsula Times Tribune'', and '' The Sporting News'', and authored 22 books on sports. He also published a number of

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articles. Best known were his works on baseball: ''Concise History of Major League Baseball'' (1998, updated through 2004) and ''The Thinking Fan's Guide to Baseball'' (originally titled ''A Thinking Man's Guide to Baseball'', 1967, renamed for

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and updated several times through 2004) are considered definitive works on the game. The former was inspired by Koppett's conversations with contemporary athletes who had little or no knowledge about the history of their game and the great players of decades past, while the latter memorably began with a one-word paragraph — "Fear." — and then explored how the batter's instinctive fear of the thrown pitch is the key point around which most other aspects of baseball play are derived. ''The Essence of the Game is Deception: Thinking about Basketball'' took a similar approach to basketball. Two weeks prior to his death, Koppett completed his final book, ''The Rise and Fall of the Press Box'', which is part

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and part memoir about changes in sports media coverage since World War II when he became a sportswriter. Koppett received the J. G. Taylor Spink Award from the

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and the Curt Gowdy Media Award by the

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in 1994. According to his daughter Katherine Koppett Richter, shortly before his death at age 79 in San Francisco, Koppett commented, "Every decade of my life has been better than the decade before."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koppett, Leonard 1923 births 2003 deaths Sportswriters from New York (state) Soviet emigrants to the United States American people of Russian descent People from the Bronx BBWAA Career Excellence Award recipients Columbia College (New York) alumni