Penn State alumnus and my personal hero Tom Verducci will return to State College on Tuesday, January 25 to speak as a part of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism’s Conversation Series. The session will be at 7p.m. in the HUB-Robeson Center Auditorium and is free and open to the public.

Verducci graduated from Penn State in 1982 with a B.A. in journalism, and went on to work as a columnist for Florida Today (previously Newsday) for a decade. In 1993 he joined Sports Illustrated and has since become the lead baseball writer. While at Penn State, he wrote for The Daily Collegian and was a walk on to the Penn State Baseball Team.

An article by David Caldwell for the New Jersey Monthly highlights Verducci’s unique approach to sports journalism saying Verducci “has won the trust of well-placed sources and the respect of his professional peers.”

This summer I had the pleasure of reading “Sports Illustrated: Inside Baseball: The Best of Tom Verducci” which right off the bat (pardon my pun) emphasizes his style: he doesn’t just write about sports – he tells you about them. The book starts with a foreward by powerhouse pitcher Roger Clemens, who recounts a time when Verducci insisted on working out alongside Clemens in between starts to get more than an insider’s point of view on a story.

Verducci has covered a variety of hot topics within the baseball community: steroids, gambling, drug and alcohol abuse, etc. He also co-authored Joe Torre’s memoir, “The Yankee Years”. His experiences on television, online, and in print will teach those in attendance significant lessons about journalism and America’s favorite past time.

Whether you’re a fan of the Yankees, the Red Sox, or not a fan of baseball at all, make sure you mark your calendars for this event.