Steven Travers: HBO'S DOCUMENTARY "BREAKING THE HUDDLE"

photo credit: Courtesy of author

Author Biography

STEVEN TRAVERS
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Influences

Jesus Christ of Nazareth; early sports books given to me by my dad and grandfather, who was a Hollywood silent film writer; the film PATTON, which taught me that there is a thin red line between good and evil, and that this thin red line, on this Earth at least, is the United States of America!

"There does not exist in the compass of language an arrangement of words to express so much as the means of effecting a counter-revolution. The means must be an obliteration of knowledge; and it has never yet been discovered how to make man unknow his knowldege, or unthink his thoughts."

- Thomas Paine

What's the most human thing there is? What's the quality that all people you know have got, the outstanding quality in all of them? Their motive power? Fear. Not fear of anyone in particular, just fear. Just a great, blind force without object. Malicious fear. The kind that makes them want to see you suffer. Because they know that they, too, will have to suffer and it makes it easier, to know that you do also. The kind that makes them want to see you being small and smutty. Small people are safe. It's not really fear, it's more than that . . . When you work harder than anyone else, when you work like a fright engine while others take it easy, and so you beat them at it - people call you unscrupulous. That's human also.
You don't work like that just to make money. It's something else. It's a great, driving energy - a creative energy? - no, it's the principle of creation itself. It's what makes everything in the world . . . and now they hate him. And he's not bitter about it . . . Because he wants to work - not to make money, just to work, just to fight and take chances - because that energy cannot be kept still. . . .
. . . But this boy . . . has no real, driving desire for anything . . . There's no passion to him, no goal. He doesn't care what he does or how or who tells him to do it. He's never created anything. He's given nothing to the world and never will. But he wants security from the world. And he's liked by everybody. And he has everybody's sympathy . . .

- The Simplest Thing in the World by Ayn Rand (1940)

Those who criticize you out of malice are small and petty people; unimpressives whose words carry no weight nor substance, motivated by knowledge that what you do, they cannot, or will never do. Go forth and produce excellence. Let this be your answer and your monument. It shall stand the test of time. The words of the unimpressive will blow away with the wind, yet always be of Christian charity, uttering kind words with a generosity of spirit.

- Steven Travers, 2009

Favorite Books

The Holy Bible; Plato’s Republic; Sun-tsu’s Art of War’ Machiavelli’s The Prince; William Shakesepeare’s Hamlet, Othello and Macbeth; Dostoeyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov; Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract; Thomas Paine’s Common Sense; The U.S. Constitution; Alexis deTocquevilles’s Democracy in America; Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities; the poems of Rudyard Kipling, Dylan Thomas and T.S. Elliot; Ernest Hemingway’s Sun Also Rises; Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer; Eugene O’Neil’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night; John Steinbeck’s East of Eden; Mark Twain’s Huck Finn; Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged; Barbara Tuchman’s Guns of August; Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago: Winston Churchill’s The Gathering Storm; Jack Kerouac’s On the Road; William Shirer’s The Nightmare Years and Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Will Durant’s The Reformation; Whittaker Chambers’ Witness; William F. Buckley’s God and Man at Yale; Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72; Roger Angell’s Summer Game; Pat Jordan’s Suitors of Spring and False Spring; Dan Jenkins’ Semi-Tough; Theodore White’s In Search of History; Richard Nixon’s Memoirs; William Safire’s Freedom; Gore Vidal’s Lincoln; Henry Kissinger’s Diplomacy; Norman Mailer’s Harlot’s Ghost; Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities and The Right Stuff; William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade; Robert Evans’ The Kid Stays in the Picture; David Halberstam’s Best and the Brightest and October 1964; Ann Coulter’s Treason; the crisp prose of Joan Didion, and the sports columns of Jim Murray.

FAVORITE MOVIES

Gone With the Wind; It’s a Wonderful Life; Red River, Advise and Consent; The Sweet Smell of Success; Spartacus; Lawrence of Arabia; The Manchurian Candidate; Seven Days in May; Dr. Strangelove; Dr. Zhivago: Cool Hand Luke; The Heat of the Night; Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; True Grit; Patton; M*A*S*H; The Godfather; The Godfather II; Chinatown; Taxi Driver; Marathon Man; The Wind and the Lion; The Deer Hunter; Apocalypse Now; The Right Stuff; Top Gun; Wall Street; Platoon; JFK; Bull Durham; Field of Dreams; The Player; A Few Good Men; True Romance; The Doors; Glengarry Glenross; Short Cuts; Forrest Gump; Pulp Fiction; Nixon; Apollo 13; Saving Private Ryan; The Thin Red Line; L.A. Confidential; and The Passion of Christ.

Favorite Authors

Plato; Sun-tsu; William Shakesepeare; Dostoeyevsky; Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Thomas Paine; Alexis deTocqueville; Charles Dickens; Rudyard Kipling, Dylan Thomas and T.S. Elliot; Ernest Hemingway; Henry Miller; Eugene O’Neil; John Steinbeck; Mark Twain
Ayn Rand; Barbara Tuchman; Boris Pasternak; Winston Churchill; Jack Kerouac; William Shirer; Will Durant; Whittaker Chambers; William F. Buckley; Hunter S. Thompson; Roger Angell; Pat Jordan; Dan Jenkins; Theodore White; Richard Nixon; William Safire; Gore Vidal; Henry Kissinger; Norman Mailer; Tom Wolfe; William Goldman; Robert Evans; David Halberstam; Ann Coulter’s Treason; Joan Didion; Jim Murray.

Praise for Steven Travers

Another bull’s-eye by Steven Travers. He has captured the love, laughter, and largesse of the 1962 baseball season, maybe the most entertaining season of all time, especially in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Yes, he can. And did.  

- Maury Allen, author of Yankees World Series Memories

Steve Travers does a really fine job of capturing not only the highlights and sidelights of those memorable days in the early 1960s, but he also focuses on some of the legends of that golden era, including Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Maury Wills, Orlando Cepeda, Don Drysdale, Whitey Ford, and so many more. Entertaining, informative, and a great read for the hardcore and the casual fan.

- Bruce Macgowan, Comcast SportsNet Bay
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ESPN Voice Jon Miller dubs the 1962 baseball season his ‘coming of age as a baseball fan.’ Steven Travers relives that season in this engaging and lively work. A book utterly worthy of an unforgettable yewar.

- Curt Smith, author of Voices of the Game and Pull Up a Chair: The Vin Scully Story

Steve Travers is the next great USC historian, in the tradition of Jim Murray, John Hall, and Mal Florence! . . . the Trojan Family needs your work. Fight On!
—USC Head Football Coach Pete Carroll

You’re a great writer and I always enjoy your musings, particularly on SC football – huge fan!
- Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane