Ira Berkow shared the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 2001, was a finalist for the Pulitzer for commentary in 1988, and was a sports columnist and feature writer for the New York Times for more than 25 years. He is the bestselling author of 23 books, including Maxwell Street: Survival in a Bazaar, Red: A Biography of Red Smith, and Summers in the Bronx: Attila the Hun and Other Yankee Stories. He was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2009 and also received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Roosevelt University in Chicago. He lives in New York City.