26 titles from award winning author, Ed Okonowicz

Sports Stories, Columns and History

Writers Ed Okonowicz and Jerry Rhodes have collaborated on a 224-page biography of well-known and frequently honored Delaware sportswriter Matt Zabitka.

The Chester, Pa., native began writing at the age of 13 and has interviewed such sports greats as Rocky Graziano, A. J. Foyt, Ted Williams, Jessie Owens and Wilt Chamberlain.

While working for the Chester (Pa.) Times and Wilmington News Journal, Matt has written thousands of articles about several generations of members of local sports families. He has been inducted into three sports hall of fames and many of his taped interviews are in the archives of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Interspersed with more than 30 photographs, dozens of humorous anecdotes and reprints of more than 35 of Matt's columns, the book also features comments from those who have worked with and been the subject of Matt's writings during the past seven decades.

Read Matt's interviews with Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Ralph Kiner, Mickey Vernon, Randy White, Danny Murtaugh, Stan Musial, "Boom Boom" Mancini, Joe Montana, Goose Goslin and other major sports figures.

There also are articles about four Delaware athletes who had played for the Negro National Baseball League, including Judy Johnson, Rats Henderson and Toots Ferrell, as well as stories about local teams and athletes. During his career, Matt has written in excess of 10,000 articles and he has met and written about nearly every major local athlete in the second half of the 20th century.

Matt's friends and colleagues also provide comments about him, including this description from Kevin Tresolini, a fellow News Journal sportswriter:

"When I first met him, he immediately struck me as the classic sportswriter. If they were going to do a movie about Matt's life, it's a shame Walter Matthau died, because he could play Matt--with a cigar hanging halfway out of his mouth, banging on a typewriter, talking on the phone and working late into the night."