Author/historian STEVEN TRAVERS, a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School For Communications and Journalism, will appear on a panel, "Writing the Sports Biography,” at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, University of Southern California campus, Saturday-Sunday, April 21-22, 10 A.M.-6 P.M.

USC will present two stages that highlight the work of the USC community, including faculty, students and alumni. Travers’s latest book, his 20th published work, is a recent, highly acclaimed biography of New York Mets Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver, who pitched for the Trojans in 1965-66. It will be prominently featured as part of the Mets’ 50th anniversary of their 1962 expansion.

TO ORDER “THE LAST ICON: TOM SEAVER AND HIS TIMES”:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&f...

STEVEN TRAVERS’S WEB SITE:

http://redroom.com/member/steven-robert-travers

STEVEN TRAVERS ON DOCUMENTARY ABOUT BUILDING OF DODGER STADIUM:

http://redroom.com/member/steven-robert-travers/media

IN 2013 FROM STEVEN TRAVERS: “THE POET: THE LIFE AND LOS ANGELES TIMES OF JIM MURRAY”

“THE LAST ICON: TOM SEAVER AND HIS TIMES”

This book tells the complete, unvarnished story of the great Tom Seaver, that rarest of all American heroes, the New York Sports Icon. In a city that produces not mere mortals but sports gods, Seaver represented the last of a breed and he stayed at the top for twenty years. Here is Tom Terrific of the Amazin' Mets, worthy of a place alongside DiMaggio, Ruth, Mantle, and Namath in the pantheon of New York idols.

Excerpt

The baseball capitol of the world
1944-1964

He was the “24-year old reincarnation of Christy Mathewson, Hobey Baker and Jack Armstrong,” according to sportswriter Ray Robinson. He was “so good blind people come out to hear him pitch,” said Reggie Jackson. He was, wrote legendary Los Angeles Times sports columnist Jim Murray, “too good to be true,” except that he was.

At the height of his fame he elicited media verbiage surpassing any previous sports star. He was the primary, dominant figure in a story generally accepted to be the greatest in athletic history, so impossible it is still viewed as much an act of God as an Earthly event. He was like a U.S. Senator who also happened to be the best pitcher in the world, a statue come to life.

He came to the toughest, most hardcore city in the world, where the greatest of the great set standards impossible to attain. He matched them, entering the pantheon reserved for a precious few that include Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig; Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle; Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays; Frank Gifford and Joe Namath. In a year in which American heroes bestrode Manhattan's concrete canyons in ticker tape splendor, he engendered the greatest adoration.

He represented greatness and excellence during the waning days of innocence, before Watergate, free agency and steroids. In his prime he was the best pitcher in baseball, and arguably the best either of all time or in the post-World War II time span, depending upon how one analyzes the records and eras. He enjoyed several of the most spectacular single seasons in history and sustained a career built on consistent success over a long period. He transcends sports and New York City.

In a rough 'n' tumble town, a town of Irish Catholics, of rough hewn neighborhood Italians, of Brooklyn Jews and Harlem blacks, he was a Park Avenue, or to be precise, a Connecticut WASP, yet somehow he was also this fresh-faced Californian who remains the only Met player to be selected among that rarest of the New York pantheon; in many ways really, the last icon.

About the author

Steven Travers, a former professional baseball player with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Oakland A's organizations, is the author of 20 books, including the best-selling Barry Bonds: Baseball's Superman, nominated for a Casey Award as Best Baseball Book of 2002; and One Night, Two Teams: Alabama vs. USC and the Game that Changed a Nation (a 2007 PNBA nominee, subject of the CBS/CSTV documentary Tackling Segregation, and soon to be a major motion picture). He pitched for the Redwood High School baseball team in California that won the national championship in his senior year, before attending college on an athletic scholarship and earning all-conference honors. A graduate of the University of Southern California, Steven coached at USC, Cal-Berkeley and in Europe; served in the Army; attended law school; and was a sports agent. He has written for the Los Angeles Times and was a columnist for StreetZebra magazine in L.A., and the San Francisco Examiner. His screenplays include The Lost Battalion, 21 and Wicked. He has a daughter, Elizabeth Travers, and lives in California. He can be reached at USCSTEVE1@aol.com. His web site is redroom.com/member/steven-robert-travers.

Books written by Steven Travers

One Night, Two Teams: Alabama vs. USC and the Game That Changed A Nation (also a
documentary, Tackling Segregation, and soon to be a major motion picture)
A's Essential: Everything You Need to Know to Be A Real Fan!
Trojans Essential: Everything You Need to Know to Be A Real Fan!
Dodgers Essential: Everything You Need to Know to Be A Real Fan!
Angels Essential: Everything You Need to Know to Be A Real Fan!
D'Backs Essential: Everything You Need to Know to Be A Real
The USC Trojans: College Football's All-Time Greatest Dynasty
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly Los Angeles Lakers
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly Oakland Raiders
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly San Francisco 49ers
Barry Bonds: Baseball's Superman
Pigskin Warriors: 140 Years of College Football's Greatest Games, Players and
Traditions
The 1969 Miracle Mets
Dodgers Baseball Yesterday & Today
A Tale of Three Cities: New York, L.A. and San Francisco During the 1962 Baseball
Season
What It Means To Be a Trojan: Southern Cal's Greatest Players Talk About Trojans
Football
The Poet: The Life and Los Angeles Times of Jim Murray
The Last Icon: Tom Seaver's Town, His Team, and His Times
God's Country: A Conservative, Christian Worldview of How History Formed the United States Empire and America's Manifest Destiny for the 21st Century
Angry White Male
The Writer's Life
The USC Mafia: From the Frat House to the White House to the Big House
Ambition: My Struggles to Fail and Succeed in Baseball, Politics, Hollywood, Writing . .
. and the Rocky Path I've Walked With Christ
What Is Truth? The Powers That Were, The Powers That Are

Praise for Steve Travers

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

. . . Steve Travers tells us all about the exciting and remarkable football . . . . that not only changed the way the game is played; it . . . changed the world.
- Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump

Steve Travers combines wit, humor, social pathos and historical knowledge with the kind of sports expertise that only an ex-jock is privy to; it is reminiscent of the work of Jim Bouton, Pat Jordan and Dan Jenkins, combined with Jim Murray' turn of phrase, Hunter Thompson's hard-scrabble Truths, and David Halberstam's unique take on our nation's place in history. His writing is great storytelling, and the result is pure genius every time.
- Westwood One radio personality Michael McDowd

Steve Travers is a great writer, an educated athlete who knows how to get inside the player's heads, and when that happens, greatness occurs. He's gonna be a superstar.
- San Francisco Examiner

Steve Travers is a phenomenal writer, an artist who labors over every word to get it just right, and he has an encyclopedic knowledge of sports and history.
- StreetZebra

Steve Travers is a “Renaissance man.”
- Jim Rome Show