Mark Friedman grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. In high school he organized a rally against apartheid & got arrested at the South African embassy. He attended film school at the University of Southern California, where he wrote a short film titled "Broken Record," which the Disney Channel optioned for a cable television movie. Friedman has also worked on the Dukakis campaign, read scripts for the Fox Network, taught for the "Princeton Review," attended law school for a semester, & attended the writing program at Johns Hopkins University, where he is currently a visiting lecturer. His book "Columbus Slaughters Braves" was inspired by a 1995 baseball game in which Cal Ripkin broke Lou… Gehrig's consecutive games record. Though Friedman loves baseball for its innate drama, he maintains that he has no athletic ability whatsoever. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.