Still Toxic After All These Years — About four years ago, a writer friend began lobbying me to write columns about politics, if not for a website, as a vehicle to get things off my chest in a more focused way. She knew I was a prolific poster of passionate progressive opinions on Facebook and that I…

During the most festive time of the year — the six weeks that begin tomorrow and lasts through New Year’s Day — the visions I have dancing in my head do not involve sugar plums. …

The story of how the late, great Australian singer/songwriter Peter Allen was inspired by and exuded the performing essence of the legendary Al Jolson. By Stephen Hanks — This past October 23 was the 70th anniversary of the death of Al Jolson. Why was this significant and a shame it wasn’t remembered by more than Jolson aficionados? Because before there was Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, Kanye and Jay-Z, Justin Beiber and Beyonce, Madonna and Michael Jackson, The…

By Stephen Hanks Author’s Note: This week marks 11 years since I made a spontaneous decision to join a small group on a humanitarian trip to Haiti to help earthquake recovery efforts in whatever way I could. A few days after I returned from what was a totally surreal experience, I…

By Stephen Hanks, Published on March 29, 1987 in New York Daily News Sunday Magazine Author’s Note: Additional text added that had been edited out of the original manuscript for space considerations. Nick Testa is a baseball immortal? Never heard of him? Well, his name is etched firmly in the…

By Stephen Hanks Published on August 5, 1986 in The Village Voice, New York City I first heard the phrase “You gotta love the game” during my college baseball days. It was uttered with a combination of sincere passion and mock self-justification by my coach, Nick Testa, who is still…

By Stephen Hanks Published on May 11, 1978 in the Herbert H. Lehman College (CUNY) Student Newspaper MERIDIAN • One Week Before Graduation Day On Thursday evening, September 13, 1977, my idol won his 200th career game. It was against the Los Angeles Dodgers and, of course, from that information…

When It Comes to “Unity” and “Bipartisanship” With Republicans, President Biden Should Be All Talk and No Action — Thirty thousand five hundred seventy three . . . No, it’s not close to the number of minutes in the song “Seasons of Love,” from the opening of the musical Rent. But it is the number of false or misleading claims the Washington Post calculated that Donald Trump made during…

The Inside Story of How a New York Mets Fan’s Magazine Launch in 1983 Led to the Acquisition of the Franchise-Changing Player — Note: This piece was first published on the website MetsMerized Online in 2009. It all began in the fall of 1982, just after my 27th birthday. Since my early teenage years, I had dreamed of starting my own magazine about professional sports in New York. I remembered a short-lived magazine…