“I'm from California, but my father, who passed away when I was young, was from Newark. When I was kid, we would go back east and catch Yankees games. His side of the family are big Yankees fans. But, the real connection came in '97 when I moved to New York and became friends with the team.”

“I've been writing about James Fenimore Cooper. He was not a writer. Here was a man who was 30 years old and had never put anything more than his signature on paper.”