Relationships & Family

Dad's Pitch

admin — Wed, 01 Apr 1998 06:59:00 -0600

When I was pitching in the major leagues I was known as "Knucksie," because I threw a knuckleball. You don't actually throw a knuckleball with your knuckles.

But that's just one of the many strange things about the pitch. Few pitchers can consistently control it, and fewer still can make a living throwing it.

Yet that's exactly what my brother Joe and I both did. We credit our dad. He's the one who taught me the knuckler—and just about every important thing I know.

A Song I Had to Give Away

admin — Tue, 01 Jun 1993 14:17:00 -0500

As a songwriter I'm naturally pleased when people recognize my authorship. When Goldie Hawn recorded my tune "The House Song" in the mid-1970s, it was as big a thrill to me as when "I Dig Rock and Roll Music," which I had a hand in writing, went Top 10 in the 1960s. But to this day the song I get the most credit for is one I didn't really write.

Music has been part of my life since I was eight years old. In high school I was encouraged to start my own rhythm-and-blues group, but when I moved to New York City in 1959, I had no entertainment career plans.

"I Carry Hope With Me"

admin — Mon, 01 Jan 2001 08:21:00 -0600

For more than 40 years, I have studied some of our closest relatives in the animal kingdom. Much of that time I lived among the chimpanzees of Gombe National Park in Tanzania, East Africa, observing them for hours, filling notebooks with accounts of their behavior. More recently, alarmed by the harm we have inflicted on the natural world, I have turned my energies to the protection of wildlife and the environment.

All-American Idol

admin — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:30:00 -0600

I'd just put our one-year-old daughter, Zion, into her cradle that muggy summer night four years ago when my boyfriend, Zion's father, barged into my apartment. "Let me have some cash," he demanded. "How much you got?"