'Only A Game' Host Talks About Sports And Poetry

Bill Littlefield, host of NPR's Only A Game, has been writing and broadcasting about sports for more than three decades.

Now he has written a book of poems about sports called "Take Me Out."

Why poetry?

"I had written six other books and I thought, Wouldn't it be fun just to put something together, just for the fun of it?" he told Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson. "I thought it might be fun to produce a book that parents and children would enjoy reading together, both for the sound of it and the jokes and the sense and just the delight."

Over the decades, Littlefield has found somethings about his approach to covering sports have changed, but other things have not.

"I used to be a fan of particular teams and I've become a fan of particular people that I meet and enjoy and respect," he said. "Even from those days I was trying to write about stuff that maybe other sportswriters were not so concerned with."

Poems & drawing from TAKE ME OUT, by Bill Littlefield, illustrated by Stephen Coren, Zephyr Press, 2014. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Zephyr Press.