LEONARD KOPPETT DEAD

The legendary baseball writer, Leonard Koppett died of a heart attack in San Francisco on Sunday. He was 79. Koppett’s book, “The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Baseball,” is on the short list of indespensable baseball reference books. If you don’t own it, do yourself a favor and track it down when you have a chance. Gary Huckaby of Baseball Prospectus had a brief appreciation of Koppett yesterday, and I will be on the look out for more tributes in the next couple of days.

I’m in the midst of doing research for the “Curt Flood” biography I’m writing for Young Adults, and Koppett, who covered Flood’s suit against MLB for both The New York Times and The Sporting News was one of the handful of journalists who were even-handed towards Flood’s case. He was from the old-“Elements of Style”-school, and his writing was clear, succinct, and clean.

He will be missed.