0 ratings | 0 reviews | avg rating:0.0

more photos (1)

Jane Leavy’s Followers (130)

Jane’s Bookshelves

to-read (0)
currently-reading (0)
read (0)

Jane’s Friends

Jane hasn't connected with their friends on Goodreads, yet.

Jane Leavy

Goodreads Author

Born

The United States

Website

https://www.janeleavy.com

Twitter

janeleavy1

Genre

Sports, Biography, Fiction

Member Since

June 2018

edit data

Jane Leavy is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Last Boy, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy and the comic novel Squeeze Play, which Entertainment Weekly called “the best novel ever written about baseball.” Her latest book is The Big Fella. She was a staff writer at The Washington Post from 1979 to1988, first in the sports section, then writing for the style section. She covered baseball, tennis, and the Olympics for the paper. She wrote features for the style section about sports, politics, and pop culture, including, most memorably, a profile of Mugsy Bogues, the 5’3″ guard for the Washington Wizards, which was longer than he is tall.

Before joining the The Washington Post, she was a staff writer at womenSports and Self magazine Jane Leavy is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Last Boy, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy and the comic novel Squeeze Play, which Entertainment Weekly called “the best novel ever written about baseball.” Her latest book is The Big Fella. She was a staff writer at The Washington Post from 1979 to1988, first in the sports section, then writing for the style section. She covered baseball, tennis, and the Olympics for the paper. She wrote features for the style section about sports, politics, and pop culture, including, most memorably, a profile of Mugsy Bogues, the 5’3″ guard for the Washington Wizards, which was longer than he is tall.

Before joining the The Washington Post, she was a staff writer at womenSports and Self magazines. She has written for many publications, including The New York Times, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, The Village Voice, and The New York Daily News. Leavys work has been anthologized in many collections, including Best Sportswriting, Coach: 25 Writers Reflect on People Who Made a Difference, Child of Mine: Essays on Becoming a Mother, Nike Is a Goddess: The History of Women in Sports, Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend: Women Writers on Baseball, A Kind of Grace: A Treasury of Sportswriting by Women, and Making Words Dance: Reflections on Red Smith, Journalism and Writing.

She grew up on Long Island where she pitched briefly and poorly for the Blue Jays of the Roslyn Long Island Little League. On her parents first date, her father, a water boy for the 1927 New York football Giants, took her mother to a Brooklyn College football game. She retaliated by taking him to Loehmanns after the final whistle. It was a template for their 63-year union. As a child, Jane Leavy worshipped Mickey Mantle from the second-floor ballroom in the Concourse Plaza Hotel where her grandmothers synagogue held services on the High Holidays.

Jane Leavy attended Barnard College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she wrote her masters essay (later published in The Village Voice) on Red Smith, the late sports columnist for The New York Times, who was her other childhood hero.

She has two adult children, Nick and Emma, and she lives in Washington, DC, and Truro, Massachusetts. ...more

54 posts
Jane Leavy's Blog

“Jane is an elite spitballer”: The Atlantic’s review of ‘Commissioner’

To borrow a baseball term of art (okay, a clich��), Jane Leavy is an elite spitballer. No one is better built than Leavy, a crafty veteran sportswriter, for between-innings repartee, wry asides, and tossed-off ideas for improving her beloved sport��and maybe even keeping its ever-looming obsolescence at bay for another decade or three. Leavy��s suggestions […]

View more on Jane Leavy's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on October 09, 2025 10:40

View all 54 posts »

Combine Editions
Jane Leavy’s books

Average rating: 3.99 · 15,905 ratings · 1,259 reviews · 13 distinct works • Similar authors

	Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy 4.08 avg rating — 6,877 ratings — published 2002 — 46 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood 3.97 avg rating — 6,913 ratings — published 2010 — 27 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created 3.75 avg rating — 1,622 ratings — published 2018 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Out of My League: The Classic Hilarious Account of an Amateur's Ordeal in Professional Baseball by George Plimpton, Tom Wolfe (Introduction), Jane Leavy (Goodreads Author) (Foreword) 3.63 avg rating — 352 ratings — published 1983 — 30 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Best American Sports Writing 2011 by Jane Leavy (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Glenn Stout (Goodreads Author) (Editor) 3.86 avg rating — 174 ratings — published 2011 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Damn Yankees: Twenty-Four Major League Writers on the World's Most Loved (and Hated) Team by Rob Fleder (Editor)(Narrator), Roy Blount Jr. (Contributor), Sally Jenkins (Contributor) 3.73 avg rating — 178 ratings — published 2012 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Squeeze Play: A Novel 3.39 avg rating — 144 ratings — published 1990 — 22 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong With Baseball and How to Fix It 4.07 avg rating — 91 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Babe Ruth Deception (A Fraser and Cook Historical Mystery, Book 3) by David O. Stewart (Goodreads Author), Jane Leavy (Goodreads Author) (Foreword) 3.40 avg rating — 81 ratings — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tarbrushed 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Jane Leavy…

rss
Jane’s Recent Updates

Jane Leavy wrote a new blog post “Jane is an elite spitballer”: The Atlantic’s review of ‘Commissioner’ To borrow a baseball term of art (okay, a clich��), Jane Leavy is an elite spitballer. No one is better built than Leavy, a crafty veteran sportswrite Read more of this blog post »
Oct 10, 2025 05:15AM · like

More of Jane's books…

Quotes by Jane Leavy (?)

“In the immortal words of Willie Stargell, trying to hit Koufax was like “trying to drink coffee with a fork.”
― Jane Leavy, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy

3 likes

“Asked once what he was doing to keep busy in retirement, Hank Aaron replied, “I’m being Hank Aaron.”
― Jane Leavy, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy

2 likes

“It’s like being in the ballpark with Jesus.”
― Jane Leavy, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy

2 likes

See all Jane Leavy's quotes »

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Seasonal Read...: Completed Tasks: Do Not Delete Posts	2625	600	Aug 31, 2014 08:59PM
You'll love this ...: Cherie's Cartularies 2014	140	112	Nov 16, 2014 12:43PM
2015 Reading Chal...: Book Suggestions - Not Really Off Topic	79	196	Feb 25, 2015 08:24AM
The Challenge Fac...: I ♥ Audio books! - March	8	19	Mar 07, 2018 06:24AM
A Million More Pages: Saint Patrick's Day	88	160	Mar 19, 2018 07:28PM
Game Night: March Challenge of the Month: Happy Families	97	116	Apr 01, 2018 03:46PM
A Million More Pages: Disney's Descendants	137	154	Apr 02, 2018 06:38PM
A Million More Pages: March Cover Hunt	121	144	Apr 02, 2018 06:40PM
A Million More Pages: March 2018 Audio Book Challenge	74	89	Apr 02, 2018 08:24PM