Joe Torre was born in Brooklyn, New York on July 18, 1940. He played professional baseball for the Atlanta Braves, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the New York Mets. In 1965, he won a Gold Glove as a catcher. He later managed all three teams he played for as well as the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers. During his tenure as manager of the Yankees, from 1996 to 2007, the Yankees reached the post season each year and won ten American League East Division titles, six American League pennants, and four World Series titles. From 1985 to 1990, he was a television analyst for the California Angels and was a guest analyst for ESPN during the 1989 World Series. He has also written books… including Chasing the Dream, Joe Torre's Ground Rules for Winners, and The Yankee Years.
Sports writer Tom Verducci was born in East Orange, New Jersey. He received a B. A. in journalism from Penn State University in 1982. He was a sports reporter for Florida Today in Cocoa, Florida for one year. Then he spent 10 years as a sports reporter for Newsday, where he was its national baseball columnist from 1990-1993. He started working at Sports Illustrated in 1993 and also writes for its online magazine si.com.