About the Author

Growing up in Clifton, N.J., Jack DeVries wanted to replace Mickey Mantle in centerfield for the New York Yankees but didn’t have the talent. So he learned to write about The Mick and others. 

DeVries began his writing career in 1990 by winning Bloomfield College’s George M. Jones Award for literary excellence. His first published work appeared in the 1991 Cleveland Indians Yearbook. Notable works for the Indians (now Guardians) include two magazine-length historical pieces celebrating the closing of Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium and opening of Jacobs (now Progressive) Field.   

DeVries’ first book, Indians Baseball – 100 Years of Memories, the Official 100th Anniversary Book of the Cleveland Indians, was published in 2000. The limited-edition, leather-bound coffee table book sold 15,000 copies and more in paperback. 

DeVries has written often for USA Today Baseball Weekly, profiling such stars as Babe Ruth, Phil Rizzuto, Larry Doby and Jim Bouton. He captured Baseball Weekly’s cover twice with a story about the House of David barnstorming team and an article featuring the 1969 New York Mets. 

He has also written for Beckett Tribute, contributing comic scripts about such stars as Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Frank Thomas, and Mickey Mantle. His work is part of the Beckett Great Sport Heroes collection, published by Random House. Additional work includes articles for New Jersey Monthly and the Bergen Record. DeVries has also authored a weekly sports column for the Herald News, a daily newspaper serving the North Jersey area, and his work appears often in the Clifton Merchant Magazine.

In 2014, DeVries was a finalist in the Table 4 Writers Foundation Grant Competition, honoring arts supporter and famed New York restaurant owner Elaine Kaufman, for his short-story about the 1969-70 New York Knicks.

DeVries has completed two unpublished works: The Untold Story of Firehand Johnson: The Best Who Ever Was, a young adult novel about a former Negro League pitcher fighting to save his neighborhood with baseball; and A Story for the Rest of Us, an everyman memoir about sports, raising daughters and the meaning of life.