Luke Epplin
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Author of MOSES AND THE DOCTOR (USA Today bestseller) and OUR TEAM (on Larry Doby, Satchel Paige, Bob Feller) Contact: lepplin@gmail.com
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Articles by Luke Epplin
The Staging of One of Baseball’s Most Famous Images: The Steve Gromek-Larry Doby Photo Revisited
This article was written by Luke Epplin This article was published in The National Pastime: Baseball on Lake Erie (2026) The famous photograph of Steve Gromek and Larry Doby embracing after Game Four of the 1948 World Series became known as a symbol against racism. (Getty Images) On October 9, 1948, the Cleveland Indians, up two games to one in a tightly contested World Series against the Boston Braves, turned to a spare part in their pitching rotation.
Dad Books in Decline
Or, a genre expands as the readers contract More than anything, book publishers love boxes. When considering whether to purchase a manuscript, they do look at sales figures from comparable titles, including the author’s own track record. But equally important, they debate which box to pack the potential book into. Is it a swoony novel set in a fantastical world? Easy: romantasy. Is it a gripping work of narrative nonfiction set during a pivotal moment of World War II? Ah, you’ve got a Dad Book there.
Do You Write About Things Other Than Sports?
The thing about publishing a book is that you veer from locking yourself in silence for years to talking for days on end. It’s whiplash-inducing. Unless you’re some big-name personality, you’re obligated to accept every podcast request that comes your way. For months after your publication date, you’ll spend hours answering variations of the same questions. (How did you come up with your topic? What is your personal connection to the subject matter? How come your ten-word subtitle isn’t more nuanced?
When Philadelphia Met Boston…
Here was my dream: Five years ago, when I came up with the idea for Moses and the Doctor, Ben Simmons was an all-star for the Philadelphia 76ers, and his teammate Joel Embiid was the runner-up for the NBA MVP. Both players were in their mid-twenties. By the time my book came out, I reasoned, the 76ers, led by these two stars, would be in the thick of a championship dynasty. Of course, it didn’t turn out that way.
"Hang Up and Listen" at the Origins and the End of "Our Team"
Hang Up and Listen, the long-running sports podcast on Slate, ran its final episode today. It’s been around since 2009, and I’ve been a weekly listener ever since. I have a small history with the show. In 2013, I published a piece in The Daily Beast entitled “The Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Baseball Book.” The next day, Josh Levin, the podcast’s host and Slate’s executive editor, shot me an email with the line: “Love the Daily Beast piece.
Author Luke Epplin – 4/9
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The Mystery of Gene Bearden
A few years ago, after a reading that I gave in Cleveland for my book Our Team, an audience member approached me, introduced himself as a fellow member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), and then dropped a bombshell: Gene Bearden, the unlikely catalyst for the Cleveland Indians’ charge into the 1948 World Series, was not a war hero. I was floored. Outside of his peculiar knuckleball, Bearden’s wartime experience was perhaps the defining feature of his biography.
The Newark Eagles Finally Win It All
The first draft of Our Team clocked in at 180,000 words, almost twice the book’s contracted length. Hard cuts needed to be made. I eliminated five chapters and trimmed down others. It was all for the best, but I’ve always wished that I could salvage some of those scraps. Here’s another one: a section on the 1946 Negro League World Series, featuring Larry Doby’s Newark Eagles against Satchel Paige’s Kansas City Monarchs. This comes in the middle of a chapter, so it cuts off a little abruptly.
Five Years of "Our Team"
Five years ago, on the day that Our Team went on sale, I journeyed from my apartment to Astoria Bookshop, two blocks away. There were maybe fifty books waiting for me. I signed them, snapped a photo outside the store—a mask plastered across my face—and then went home. Ever since college, when I became serious about writing, I’d daydreamed about the publication day of my first book, but not in my worst nightmares could I have envisioned that happening during a global pandemic.
Excerpt: Moses and the Doctor: Two men, one championship, and the birth of modern basketball
Moses and the Doctor: Two Men, One Championship, and the Birth of Modern Basketball The rousing story of two trailblazing superstars—Julius “Dr. J” Erving and Moses Malone—whose improbable alliance and unsung legacies shaped the wildest and most innovative era of basketball history. BUY HERE Late in August 1982, Harold Katz phoned Billy Cunningham and posed a series of questions: “Would Moses Malone help our team?
Excerpt: Moses and the Doctor: Two Men, One Championship, and the Birth of Modern Basketball
Luke Epplin Grand Central Publishing Updated Feb. 11, 2026, 3:12 p.m. ET Moses and the Doctor: Two Men, One Championship, and the Birth of Modern Basketball The rousing story of two trailblazing superstars—Julius “Dr. J” Erving and Moses Malone—whose improbable alliance and unsung legacies shaped the wildest and most innovative era of basketball history.
MOSES AND THE DOCTOR
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer. A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s. Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters.
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Description The rousing story of two trailblazing superstars--Julius "Dr. J" Erving and Moses Malone--whose improbable alliance and unsung legacies shaped the wildest and most innovative era of basketball history. In the early 1970s, playground courts across the United States were jammed with hoops buffs experimenting with showy moves and aerial shots that were changing the look and feel of a sport once stubbornly earthbound.
Squawkin' Sports: NBA All-Star Weekend
Squawkin' Sports: NBA All-Star Weekend Hosted by Patrick Sauer & David J. Roth Featuring authors Luke Epplin and Yaron Weitzman Tickets starting at $11 Created and hosted by writers Patrick Sauer and David J. Roth, Squawkin’ Sports is an ongoing series featuring book chats with authors who write about playing games.
“We Owe You One”: The Sixers, the 1977 NBA Finals, and the Fight for the Future of Basketball
Longform “We Owe You One”: The Sixers, the 1977 NBA Finals, and the Fight for the Future of Basketball In an excerpt from the forthcoming Moses and The Doctor, author Luke Epplin explores everything that went wrong for the Sixers — and how the stakes were much higher than what happened on the court.
Luke Epplin - Author - Philadelphia Magazine
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The Homestretch
It’s now two weeks until Moses and the Doctor will be on sale. I started working on this book so long ago that I hadn’t even met my wife yet. I’ve moved three times since then. Heck, I don’t even live in the same state that I started the book in. I began my research in a two-room rental in Astoria and finished reviewing the copyedits in a townhouse in New Jersey that I own (and in which a baby lives).
Boxing the Unboxing
My wife traveled to San Francisco last week for a conference. The day she left, my editor informed me that the final copies of Moses and the Doctor were imminent. Instead of feeling excited, I panicked. Who would film my unboxing video now? It’s a question that wouldn’t have crossed a writer’s mind when I broke into book publishing a quarter century ago. A writer’s first contact with their book was a private affair then, witnessed by a close circle of family and friends.
Of Batons and Brawls
It’s four weeks until Moses and the Doctor comes out. Here’s a short post on a minor figure in the book, Calvin Murphy, whom I interviewed about his time playing with Moses Malone. I didn’t know during the time of our interview that Murphy once had been a nationally acclaimed baton-twirler. An hour or so after the Houston Rockets had upset the Boston Celtics in Game Two of the 1981 NBA Finals, Calvin Murphy, the Rockets point guard, hailed a taxi from his hotel in downtown Boston.
Midwestern Adolescents Dream of Pez Crunch
The night before my older sister’s wedding in 1998, I bought two boxes of Lucky Charms and several packets of Pez. After my sister went to bed, I spent a few hours plucking out each marshmallow from the Lucky Charms and trying—with disastrous results—to soften the Pez with various household appliances: stoves, microwaves, grills, etc. At some point after midnight, I gave up and mixed in the burnt Pez with the dog-chow-like Lucky Charms bits.
Bob Feller’s Enraged No-Hitter
The first draft of Our Team clocked in at 180,000 words, almost twice the book’s contracted length. Hard cuts needed to be made. I eliminated five chapters and trimmed down others. It was all for the best, but I’ve always wished that I could salvage some of those scraps. Here’s another one: a section about Bob Feller’s no-hitter at Yankee Stadium at the start of the 1946 season. On April 30, 1946, Bob Feller stalked to the mound at Yankee Stadium in a huff.
What Arnold Hano Gave Me
In 2016, while I was researching the book that would become Our Team, I picked up A Day in the Bleachers, the baseball classic by Arnold Hano. The titular “day” was September 29, 1954. Hano was in the bleachers at the Polo Grounds to watch the New York Giants square off against the Cleveland Indians in the opening game of the World Series.
Bob Feller’s Overbooked Barnstorming Tour of 1946
The first draft of Our Team clocked in at 180,000 words, almost twice the book’s contracted length. Hard cuts needed to be made. I eliminated five chapters and trimmed down others. It was all for the best, but I’ve always wished that I could salvage some of those scraps.
The Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Baseball Book, Revisited
I’ve never liked writing about myself. I came of age in the blogging era, when writers were revealing their darkest secrets for $200 a pop on boutique sites that trafficked in TMI. It wasn’t for me. After I left academia and got serious about publishing, I resolved to make a name for myself by keeping my name hidden. No tell-all pieces on relationship problems or career struggles or past traumas.
Twilight of the GOAT
In the two decades since YouTube debuted, a small but dedicated group of basketball obsessives have made it their mission to post on YouTube selectively edited clips of every game that Chicago Bulls Hall of Famer Michael Jordan has appeared in. These uploads generally include each basket scored by Jordan in a particular contest, along with any flashy assists, rebounds, and steals—and, if the editor is feeling generous, a dunk or two by Scottie Pippen.
Baseball’s Vanishing Despite Player
When Bill Veeck purchased the St. Louis Browns in July 1951, the team already had settled into its customary spot in the American League cella r. True to his reputation as baseball’s foremost maverick, Veeck declared that the Browns’ season was as good as over.
The Staging of One of Baseball’s Most Famous Images
On October 9, 1948, the Cleveland Indians, up two games to one in a tightly contested World Series against the Boston Braves, turned to a spare part in their pitching rotation. Even though it’d been three weeks since Steve Gromek had last started, in Game Four he matched Braves ace Johnny Sain pitch for pitch. It wouldn’t have been enough if another unlikely player hadn’t bailed him out.
Charlie Brown and the Futility of Positive Thinking
A celebration of "Peanuts" at 75 On October 2, 1950, an unheralded comic strip debuted in a mere seven newspapers nationwide. In four austere squares, each no bigger than an airmail stamp, two children sit on a concrete stoop. Approaching them is a nondescript child wearing a blank white shirt and black shorts, his bulbous, curiously bald head his lone distinguishing characteristic. “Well! Here comes ol’ Charlie Brown!” exclaims the seated boy, later identified as Shermy.
Moses and the Doctor: Two Men, One Championship, and the Birth of Modern Basketball
Description The rousing story of two trailblazing superstars--Julius "Dr. J" Erving and Moses Malone--whose improbable alliance and unsung legacies shaped the wildest and most innovative era of basketball history. In the early 1970s, playground courts across the United States were jammed with hoops buffs experimenting with showy moves and aerial shots that were changing the look and feel of a sport once stubbornly earthbound.
Moses and the Doctor: Two Men, One Championship, and the Birth of Modern Basketball
Celebrate Pride Month with 20% off these select books. Shop here! Two Men, One Championship, and the Birth of Modern Basketball This title will be released on: Feb 10, 2026 Add to Wishlist Bookshop.org has the highest-rated customer service of any bookstore in the world Description The rousing story of two trailblazing superstars--Julius "Dr. J" Erving and Moses Malone--whose improbable alliance and unsung legacies shaped the wildest and most innovative era of basketball history.
Moses and the Doctor: Two Men, One Championship, and the Birth of Modern Basketball|Hardcover
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Moses and the Doctor
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Baseball Book Review - Our Team, By Luke Epplin
The 2024 World Series matchup is set. The Los Angeles Dodgers will face the New York Yankees beginning this Friday night and will surely record historic moments for decades of fans to enjoy. With the World Series just days away, pitting two historic baseball franchises against each other, I took the time this week to read about another historic World Series championship. This baseball story tells a deeper, less Hollywood like tale of one championship run and four of its integral players.
What Do Dads Want?
The people have been clamoring. They’ve been coming up to me—tears in their eyes, many of them—and they’ve been begging me to speak out. Begging for my wisdom, my guidance, my comforting voice. The people are troubled, you see, and they want answers. They need answers. They want to know what Dads want. It’s not the easiest question to answer, mind you. Dads are mysterious creatures; strange, unknowable beasts, lumbering among us, muttering “where’s the dang remote”.
A spring bouquet of 6 brand-new paperbacks
By MOIRA MACDONALD The Seattle Times ‘Homo Irrealis: The Would-Be Man Who Might Have Been: Essays’ By André Aciman The author of “Call Me By Your Name” here offers “elegant meditations on time and memory, longing and desire, being and becoming,” according to a starred Kirkus Review.
Book World: In Cleveland, four men helped bring baseball into the modern age
In the history of American sports after World War II, two themes keep floating to the surface. The first is the commercial boom: more fans, more publicity, more money, more opportunities for creative entrepreneurs and ambitious players. The second is the sensational rise of the Black athlete, which drives larger conversations about race and rights.
OUR TEAM by Luke Epplin Read by Leon Nixon
In a serious tone that captures the significance of breaking the color barrier and with a flair for portraying quirky characters, narrator Leon Nixon guides listeners through the lives of four men who transformed the Cleveland Indians to win the World Series in 1948. Larry Doby was signed a few months after Jackie Robinson; then aging Negro Leagues legend Satchel Paige finally got a call.
The SABR Bookshelf: Winter/Spring 2021
Here are the SABR Bookshelf listings for Winter/Spring 2021. To get your NEW book listed on The SABR Bookshelf, make sure a review copy is sent to: The SABR Bookshelf, Cronkite School at ASU, 555 N. Central Ave. #416, Phoenix, AZ 85004. An e-book file will also suffice; please send the e-book in PDF, EPUB or Kindle/MOBI format to jpomrenke@sabr.org.
How Jackie Robinson Paved the Way for the Undersung Larry Doby
In his autobiography, I Never Had It Made, Jackie Robinson wrote that in the weeks after he broke the major-league color line in April 1947, he often felt like “a black Don Quixote tilting at a lot of white windmills.” The abuse nearly broke him. Bench jockeys demanded he go back to the cotton fields, the jungle, the bushes. Some hotels refused to accommodate him. Letters poured in with theats to him and his family.
Our Team
The riveting story of four men - Larry Doby, Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, and Satchel Paige - whose improbable union on the Cleveland Indians in the late 1940s would shape the immediate postwar era of Major League Baseball and beyond. In July 1947, not even three months after Jackie Robinson debuted on the Brooklyn Dodgers, snapping the color line that had segregated Major League Baseball, Larry Doby would follow in his footsteps on the Cleveland Indians.
Thread by @LukeEpplin on Thread Reader App
All right, my book on baseball goes on sale in two days, so let's do a quick thread on some of my favorite baseball strips in "Peanuts." I've always been partial to the baseball strips from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, when the pain of losing felt most acute to Charlie Brown, less leavened by sight gags or quick quips. There were a series of years where Charlie Brown's team, despite being terrible, always had a chance at winning the championship, and of course, Charlie Brown screwed it up.
Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball
Description The riveting story of four men--Larry Doby, Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, and Satchel Paige--whose improbable union on the Cleveland Indians in the late 1940s would shape the immediate postwar era of Major League Baseball and beyond. In July 1947, not even three months after Jackie Robinson debuted on the Brooklyn Dodgers, snapping the color line that had segregated Major League Baseball, Larry Doby would follow in his footsteps on the Cleveland Indians.
Our Team | Luke Epplin | Macmillan
The riveting story of four men—Larry Doby, Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, and Satchel Paige—whose improbable union on the Cleveland Indians in the late 1940s would shape the immediate postwar era of Major League Baseball and beyond. In July 1947, not even three months after Jackie Robinson debuted on the Brooklyn Dodgers, snapping the color line that had segregated Major League Baseball, Larry Doby would follow in his footsteps on the Cleveland Indians.
St. Louis's Second Most Valuable Player
The Cardinals made out like bandits (as they did so often around that time—Blake Stein, Eric Ludwick and T.J. Matthews for Mark McGwire, anyone?). With his pretty-boy physique, exaggerated reactions at the plate, and penchant for unnecessary dives in center field, Jim Edmonds quickly became one of the most popular Cardinals for male and female fans alike.
Recovering Cubanness
Marcel Proust, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Bram Stoker all suffered isolating illnesses as children. Unlike Oscar Hijuelos, however, none lost his native tongue. Born to Cuban immigrant parents in 1951, Hijuelos grew up in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of upper Manhattan. When he was four, Hijuelos’s mother took him and his older brother on a lengthy trip to her hometown of Holguín, along the northeastern coast of Cuba.
Best new baseball books to read now
From the moon landing to Woodstock to the Stonewall riots, revolutionary change was in the air during the summer of 1969. That extended to sports as well. These were heady months when laughingstocks like the New York Mets, a team which had never finished higher than ninth in baseball’s National League, suddenly were storming into the World Series.
When Charles Schulz got drafted in WWII, his mother was dying of cancer. He never saw her again. Mother […]"
Let's do a mini-Mother's Day thread: When Charles Schulz got drafted in WWII, his mother was dying of cancer. He never saw her again. Mother's Day in Peanuts is often a sad occasion, none more so than this autobiographical strip. 2) In the 70s and 80s, it was often Woodstock who was looking for his mother on this day. In keeping with the sadness of this day in Peanuts, he not only never found her, but often ended up heartbroken.
Best new baseball books to read now
By Luke Epplin Special to Newsday May 3, 2019 6:00 AM From the moon landing to Woodstock to the Stonewall riots, revolutionary change was in the air during the summer of 1969. That extended to sports as well. These were heady months when laughingstocks like the New York Mets, a team which had never finished higher than ninth in baseball’s National League, suddenly were storming into the World Series.
What Would Allende Say?
On an unseasonably warm June day in Santiago, nearly 1,500 Chileans gathered behind the presidential palace to pay homage to Salvador Allende on the centennial of his birth.
Go Wild in Australia’s Top End
In Australia, a rugged stretch of land along the northern edge of the Outback, known as the Top End, teems with natural wonders. Tropical wetlands inhabited by colorful birds, awe-inspiring national parks—some with impeccably preserved Aboriginal rock art—tranquil rivers dotted with crocodiles, and distinct regional cultures are just a few reasons to visit this emerging part of the country.
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