About this item
A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist follows an embattled Little League team in inner-city Newark, New Jersey, revealing the complex realities of urban life in one of Americas most dangerous citiesWhen Rodney Mason, an ex-con drug dealer from Newarks rough South Ward, was shot and paralyzed, he vowed to turn his life around. A former high-school pitching ace with a 93 mph fastball, Mason decided to form a Little League team to help boys avoid the street life that had claimed his youth and mobility. Predictably, the players strugglethey endure poverty, unstable family lives with few positive male role models, failing schools, and dangerous neighborhoodsbut through the fists and tears, lopsided losses and rare victories, this bunch of misfits becomes a team, and in doing so gives the community something to root for.
About the Author
Jonathan Schuppe is a reporter specializing in criminal justice and urban issues. A CHANCE TO WIN, his book about a Newark, New Jersey Little League team, won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, given by the Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Until December 2008, Jonathan was a reporter at The Star-Ledger in Newark, where he covered politics, government and inner-city crime. He also shot and edited news videos for the paper's website, nj.com. He was part of a team of reporters awarded the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for breaking-news coverage of Governor James E. McGreevey's resignation. In 2008, the University of Colorado and the Denver Press Club honored him with the Al Nakkula Award for Police Reporting. He is also the recipient of several state journalism prizes.
He is now a national enterprise writer for NBC News.
