Steve Wilstein
Encyclopedia
Steve Wilstein is an American sportswriter, author and photographer. Wilstein broke the news of St. Louis Cardinals
slugger Mark McGwire
's androstenedione
use during his record-setting 70-home run season in 1998—a report that gave the public its first look at what became baseball's "Steroids Era," and ushered in changes in the sport as the story continued to unfold for more than a decade.
Wilstein's story for the Associated Press was the first to report evidence of a baseball player using steroids and the first to quote a player who acknowledged using them. His succeeding reports and commentaries were central to the longest-running series of stories in baseball history on a single subject with continuing developments.
Wilstein's stories and columns led to a series of revelations that resulted in Congressional hearings, drug-testing in the major leagues for the first time, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ban on androstenedione
, and the federal Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004.
His work was cited as pivotal by former Sen. George Mitchell in his 2007 report to the commissioner of baseball on steroids in the sport, after a 20-month probe, and was chronicled in the books Game of Shadows
and Juicing the Game, and detailed in the ESPN the Magazine
series, “Who Knew?” In 2009, the Seattle chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America nominated Wilstein for the Hall of Fame's J.G. Taylor Spink award "for meritorious contributions to baseball writing." In 2010, Wilstein was featured in filmmaker Ken Burns' PBS baseball documentary, "The Tenth Inning."
Wilstein is the author of "The AP Sports Writing Handbook," (McGraw-Hill, 2001), which is used as a primary text in many college journalism classes. Wilstein continues to provide commentary and insight about developments in the “Steroids Era,” although he retired from the AP in 2005. He exhibits photography at several galleries and has also written children’s stories and magazine pieces.
His awards include the National Headliner Award for a feature on boxer Jerry Quarry’s brain damage, the John Hancock business writing award for coverage of the 1987 stock market crash, and three AP Managing Editors awards for features on injured New York Jets player Dennis Byrd, illegal sports gambling’s ties to organized crime, and former Los Angeles Dodger Glenn Burke’s struggle with AIDS. Wilstein won a record 20 AP Sports Editors awards for his work covering the Olympics, Super Bowls, World Series, college football bowl games, the Grand Slam of tennis, sports business, race and gender in sports and other issues.
Wilstein's collaboration with Nye Lavalle
of Sports Marketing Group on The Business of Sports Series was the first to quantify the financial size of the U.S sports industry, at the time $180 billion, and earned Wilstein the AP Sports Editors Award for best enterprise story. The series became the foundation for several sports business publications, which now carry on similar studies.
He also won an award from the National Marrow Donor Program for a story on the illness of Hall of Famer Rod Carew's daughter, which led to tens of thousands of people registering as bone marrow donors.
’ Sammy Sosa
were closing in on Roger Maris
’ 1961 record of 61 homers—a chase that captivated the country. After Wilstein saw the bottle of andro in McGwire’s open locker while covering the chase, McGwire first denied using it, then admitted he’d been taking it for more than a year. McGwire commented, "Everybody that I know in the game of baseball uses the same stuff I use."
Wilstein’s story focused on the disparity of steroid rules in different sports. Andro, sold at the time as an over-the-counter supplement that boosted testosterone levels, was allowed in baseball but not in the Olympics, the NFL, pro tennis and all college sports. Shot putter Randy Barnes, the 1996 Olympic gold medalist and world record-holder, had recently drawn a lifetime ban for using andro, reported Wilstein, who had written extensively about steroids in the Olympics since the mid-1980s.
"The ensuing AP news story led to renewed scrutiny of the use of 'andro' and other substances by major league players," the Mitchell Report said. "... commissioner (Bud) Selig and others in baseball have said that this incident more than any other caused them to focus on the use of performance-enhancing substances as a possible problem."
Wilstein had witnessed an episode of “roid rage” by Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson after a preliminary heat at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and watched from the finish line as Johnson beat Carl Lewis in the 100-meter final. Johnson soon lost his gold and was sent home in disgrace after testing positive for an anabolic steroid
. Andro, Wilstein wrote in the story about McGwire, “is seen outside baseball as cheating and potentially dangerous.”
The story set off a controversy that has gone on for more than a decade of follow-ups by Wilstein and those who joined in about steroids and the related sports and social issues, among them McGwire’s former “Bash Brother,” Jose Canseco
, in his tell-all books, and reporters covering the BALCO
federal investigation in San Francisco.
McGwire was the first among numerous stars on various teams - including pitcher Roger Clemens
, sluggers Barry Bonds
, Alex Rodriguez
and Rafael Palmeiro
, and former MVP Ken Caminiti
—whose reputations and records were tainted as revelations appeared about their alleged or admitted performance-enhancing drug use.
Washington Post baseball writer Thomas Boswell in 1988 and the Los Angeles Times
’ Bob Nightengale in 1995 had touched on the baseball steroids issue, but without specifics were largely ignored. “Instead of sparking a wave of follow-up articles or investigations to ferret out the details of steroid use in baseball … sports writers essentially left the story alone,” Editor & Publisher writer Joe Strupp wrote in a 2006 report headlined, “Sports writers say they dropped the ball on steroids in major league sports.”
Strupp noted in an earlier E&P report in 2006 that “Wilstein’s discovery marked the first real press probe into which substances and supplements baseball players were using, and what effect they were having on their accomplishments, abilities and health.” “But then a funny thing happened,” Strupp wrote in his account of the media’s response. “Instead of being praised for discovering a questionable act by a baseball star in the middle of a record-breaking season, Wilstein was vilified.”
Wilstein "noticed a bottle of androstenedione and opened up a can of worms," SA Today baseball columnist Hal Bodley wrote in 2005. "This was baseball's feel-good story that no one, including Selig and the union, wanted tainted by a performance-enhancing supplement few of us knew anything about."
Wilstein, Bianchi wrote, “deserves a spot in Cooperstown for setting the record straight on a bogus record; for uncovering baseball’s dirty little secret when nobody else would … “Back then, baseball, the national media and everybody else associated with the game buried their heads in the euphoric sands of the time and ignored what was literally right in front of their eyes. While everybody else rooted for the story, Steve Wilstein rooted out the truth.”
Wilstein, in several columns, criticized the weak early testing by baseball. “Baseball may think it’s satisfying Congress and fooling the public with its drug-testing plan, but it’s probably doing neither,” Wilstein wrote on August 27, 2002 as the sport shaped its first stab at testing _ anonymous and without punishments. “More than likely, it will result in greater drug use, not less, as players figure out how and when they can take steroids and beat the tests.
“It will do nothing to reduce the perception, suggested by several players, that steroid use is rampant. Worst of all, it sends the message to young fans and prospects that the national pastime has a high tolerance for steroids.” Those tests ultimately found 104 players using performance-enhancing drugs, but all the names were kept anonymous—until it was revealed by Sports Illustrated in 2009 that Alex Rodriguez was among them. A-Rod then admitted he had been injected with a steroid from 2001 through 2003. Wilstein criticized players and owners when they reached agreement on a new drug-testing program in January, 2005, calling for more banned substances, a 10-day penalty for first time users, and the release of the names of those who test positive.
“Don’t be fooled,” Wilstein wrote the same day. “The new policy … is progress but it’s still just a bunt, not a home run in the effort to rid baseball of performance-enhancing drugs
. … It’s more PR and a dangerous delay in acting decisively.” The penalties were paltry, Wilstein wrote, and the program still didn’t call for random, unannounced, year-round testing, nor did it include amphetamines. Wilstein’s lengthy investigation of amphetamine use by players in 2005 was followed a few months later by baseball’s strongest testing program, which included amphetamines for the first time and much stronger penalties for failed tests.
On January 11, 2010, Wilstein's suspicions and Jose Canseco's allegations of McGwire's steroid
use were confirmed by Mark McGwire
in a statement to and interview with the Associated Press and later interviews with Bob Costas
and others by McGwire. Upon the news, many sports columnists and media spoke of Wilstein's vindication and CNN.com asked Wilstein to provide his views in an op-ed piece. Wilstein wrote that McGwire should be banned from Major League Baseball
for life and that his acts hurt baseball more than those of Pete Rose
.
’s World Series homer on two injured legs; and Curt Schilling’s “bloody sock” performance in 2004 as the Boston Red Sox rose to world champions after an 86-year drought.
Wilstein interviewed and profiled all the major stars of baseball over the past three decades, as well as many from earlier eras, including Ted Williams
, Mickey Mantle
, Willie Mays, Duke Snider
, Bobby Doerr
, and Mark Koenig
, who had the locker between Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig on the 1927 Yankees.
Wilstein also profiled a wide range of people as a general reporter, sportswriter, business writer, foreign correspondent and columnist, including: Mother Teresa, Indira Gandhi, Andy Warhol, Clint Eastwood, Edward Teller, Milton Friedman, Gen. Jimmie Doolittle, George Shultz, Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Bill Hewlett and David Packard, Nolan Bushnell, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Jerry West, Julius Erving, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Greg Norman, Tiger Woods, Annika Sorenstam, Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer, Venus and Serena Williams, Joe Montana, John Elway, Bill Walsh, John Wooden, Dean Smith, Mary Lou Retton and Dorothy Hamill. In 1994, Wilstein led the AP's award-winning coverage of the Tony Harding-Nancy Kerrigan drama.
Wilstein graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1970 with a political science degree and began his career in journalism a year later working for United Press International
as a sports writer from 1971 through 1978.
Wilstein covered the last third of Muhammad Ali
’s career for UPI. His black and white photographs of Ali are exhibited at the Panopticon Gallery in Boston. Wilstein's color images of the Boston Red Sox have been exhibited at the Griffin Museum gallery in Boston
Wilstein left UPI to accompany his wife, Cynthia Reader Wilstein, on her three-year assignment to Kathmandu, Nepal as communications officer for UNICEF. Their daughter, Tara, was born in Kathmandu in 1980. He briefly served as a foreign correspondent for UPI in New Delhi, covering Indira Gandhi’s return to power and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He also worked as a photographer for several international organizations.
Upon returning to the United States in 1981, Wilstein joined the AP in San Francisco and later became the San Jose correspondent, covering the boom years of Silicon Valley, medical research at Stanford University, the glory years of the San Francisco 49ers and the rise of two young stars on the Oakland Athletics
-- Jose Canseco
and Mark McGwire. In 1990, Wilstein became the AP’s national sports writer, then national sports columnist.
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are a professional baseball team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are members of the Central Division in the National League of Major League Baseball. The Cardinals have won eleven World Series championships, the most of any National League team, and second overall only to...
slugger Mark McGwire
Mark McGwire
Mark David McGwire , nicknamed "Big Mac", is an American former professional baseball player who played his major league career with the Oakland Athletics and the St. Louis Cardinals. He is currently the hitting coach for the St...
's androstenedione
Androstenedione
Androstenedione is a 19-carbon steroid hormone produced in the adrenal glands and the gonads as an intermediate step in the biochemical pathway that produces the androgen testosterone and the estrogens estrone and estradiol.-Synthesis:Androstenedione is the common precursor of male and female sex...
use during his record-setting 70-home run season in 1998—a report that gave the public its first look at what became baseball's "Steroids Era," and ushered in changes in the sport as the story continued to unfold for more than a decade.
Wilstein's story for the Associated Press was the first to report evidence of a baseball player using steroids and the first to quote a player who acknowledged using them. His succeeding reports and commentaries were central to the longest-running series of stories in baseball history on a single subject with continuing developments.
Wilstein's stories and columns led to a series of revelations that resulted in Congressional hearings, drug-testing in the major leagues for the first time, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ban on androstenedione
Androstenedione
Androstenedione is a 19-carbon steroid hormone produced in the adrenal glands and the gonads as an intermediate step in the biochemical pathway that produces the androgen testosterone and the estrogens estrone and estradiol.-Synthesis:Androstenedione is the common precursor of male and female sex...
, and the federal Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004.
His work was cited as pivotal by former Sen. George Mitchell in his 2007 report to the commissioner of baseball on steroids in the sport, after a 20-month probe, and was chronicled in the books Game of Shadows
Game of Shadows
Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports is a bestselling non-fiction book published on March 23, 2006 and written by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle...
and Juicing the Game, and detailed in the ESPN the Magazine
ESPN The Magazine
ESPN The Magazine is a bi-weekly sports magazine published by the ESPN sports network in Bristol, Connecticut in the United States. The first issue was published on March 11, 1998....
series, “Who Knew?” In 2009, the Seattle chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America nominated Wilstein for the Hall of Fame's J.G. Taylor Spink award "for meritorious contributions to baseball writing." In 2010, Wilstein was featured in filmmaker Ken Burns' PBS baseball documentary, "The Tenth Inning."
Wilstein is the author of "The AP Sports Writing Handbook," (McGraw-Hill, 2001), which is used as a primary text in many college journalism classes. Wilstein continues to provide commentary and insight about developments in the “Steroids Era,” although he retired from the AP in 2005. He exhibits photography at several galleries and has also written children’s stories and magazine pieces.
Journalism awards
Although best known for perhaps the most influential story in baseball history, Wilstein's 34-year career as a sports writer, business writer and general reporter garnered him 26 national awards on a variety of subjects.His awards include the National Headliner Award for a feature on boxer Jerry Quarry’s brain damage, the John Hancock business writing award for coverage of the 1987 stock market crash, and three AP Managing Editors awards for features on injured New York Jets player Dennis Byrd, illegal sports gambling’s ties to organized crime, and former Los Angeles Dodger Glenn Burke’s struggle with AIDS. Wilstein won a record 20 AP Sports Editors awards for his work covering the Olympics, Super Bowls, World Series, college football bowl games, the Grand Slam of tennis, sports business, race and gender in sports and other issues.
Wilstein's collaboration with Nye Lavalle
Nye Lavalle
Nye Lavalle is an American sports marketing executive, futurist, and social scientist turned consumer and investor advocate and activist. He is known for his studies on American sports, culture, charities, and media conducted during the 1980s and 1990s...
of Sports Marketing Group on The Business of Sports Series was the first to quantify the financial size of the U.S sports industry, at the time $180 billion, and earned Wilstein the AP Sports Editors Award for best enterprise story. The series became the foundation for several sports business publications, which now carry on similar studies.
He also won an award from the National Marrow Donor Program for a story on the illness of Hall of Famer Rod Carew's daughter, which led to tens of thousands of people registering as bone marrow donors.
Major League Baseball's "Steroids Era"
The use of steroids by players had been only hinted at until Wilstein’s story on August 21, 1998, when McGwire and the Chicago CubsChicago Cubs
The Chicago Cubs are a professional baseball team located in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the Central Division of Major League Baseball's National League. They are one of two Major League clubs based in Chicago . The Cubs are also one of the two remaining charter members of the National...
’ Sammy Sosa
Sammy Sosa
Samuel Peralta "Sammy" Sosa is a Dominican former professional baseball right fielder. Sosa played with four Major League Baseball teams over his career which spanned from 1989-2007....
were closing in on Roger Maris
Roger Maris
Roger Eugene Maris was an American Major League Baseball right fielder. During the 1961 season, he hit a record 61 home runs for the New York Yankees, breaking Babe Ruth's single-season record of 60 home runs...
’ 1961 record of 61 homers—a chase that captivated the country. After Wilstein saw the bottle of andro in McGwire’s open locker while covering the chase, McGwire first denied using it, then admitted he’d been taking it for more than a year. McGwire commented, "Everybody that I know in the game of baseball uses the same stuff I use."
Wilstein’s story focused on the disparity of steroid rules in different sports. Andro, sold at the time as an over-the-counter supplement that boosted testosterone levels, was allowed in baseball but not in the Olympics, the NFL, pro tennis and all college sports. Shot putter Randy Barnes, the 1996 Olympic gold medalist and world record-holder, had recently drawn a lifetime ban for using andro, reported Wilstein, who had written extensively about steroids in the Olympics since the mid-1980s.
"The ensuing AP news story led to renewed scrutiny of the use of 'andro' and other substances by major league players," the Mitchell Report said. "... commissioner (Bud) Selig and others in baseball have said that this incident more than any other caused them to focus on the use of performance-enhancing substances as a possible problem."
Wilstein had witnessed an episode of “roid rage” by Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson after a preliminary heat at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and watched from the finish line as Johnson beat Carl Lewis in the 100-meter final. Johnson soon lost his gold and was sent home in disgrace after testing positive for an anabolic steroid
Anabolic steroid
Anabolic steroids, technically known as anabolic-androgen steroids or colloquially simply as "steroids", are drugs that mimic the effects of testosterone and dihydrotestosterone in the body. They increase protein synthesis within cells, which results in the buildup of cellular tissue ,...
. Andro, Wilstein wrote in the story about McGwire, “is seen outside baseball as cheating and potentially dangerous.”
The story set off a controversy that has gone on for more than a decade of follow-ups by Wilstein and those who joined in about steroids and the related sports and social issues, among them McGwire’s former “Bash Brother,” Jose Canseco
José Canseco
José Canseco Capas, Jr. is a Cuban-American professional baseball manager, outfielder, and designated hitter for the Yuma Scorpions of the North American League and former Major League Baseball player. He is the identical twin brother of former major league player and current teammate Ozzie Canseco...
, in his tell-all books, and reporters covering the BALCO
Balco
Balco can refer to:* the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative - a controversial sports medicine/nutrition centre in Burlingame, California.* Balco balcony systems who develops, designs and manufactures balcony systems and glazing solutions....
federal investigation in San Francisco.
McGwire was the first among numerous stars on various teams - including pitcher Roger Clemens
Roger Clemens
William Roger Clemens , nicknamed "Rocket", is a former Major League Baseball pitcher who broke into the league with the Boston Red Sox, whose pitching staff he would help anchor for 12 years. Clemens won seven Cy Young Awards, more than any other pitcher. He played for four different teams over...
, sluggers Barry Bonds
Barry Bonds
Barry Lamar Bonds is an American former Major League Baseball outfielder. Bonds played from 1986 to 2007, for the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants. He is the son of former major league All-Star Bobby Bonds...
, Alex Rodriguez
Alex Rodriguez
Alexander Emmanuel "Alex" Rodriguez is an American professional baseball third baseman with the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball. Known popularly by his nickname A-Rod, he previously played shortstop for the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers.Rodriguez is considered one of the best...
and Rafael Palmeiro
Rafael Palmeiro
Rafael Palmeiro Corrales is a former Major League Baseball first baseman and left fielder. Palmeiro was an All-American at Mississippi State University before being drafted by the Chicago Cubs in 1985...
, and former MVP Ken Caminiti
Ken Caminiti
Kenneth Gene Caminiti was an American third baseman in Major League Baseball and the 1996 National League Most Valuable Player. He was born in Hanford, California, and attended San Jose State University...
—whose reputations and records were tainted as revelations appeared about their alleged or admitted performance-enhancing drug use.
Washington Post baseball writer Thomas Boswell in 1988 and the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
’ Bob Nightengale in 1995 had touched on the baseball steroids issue, but without specifics were largely ignored. “Instead of sparking a wave of follow-up articles or investigations to ferret out the details of steroid use in baseball … sports writers essentially left the story alone,” Editor & Publisher writer Joe Strupp wrote in a 2006 report headlined, “Sports writers say they dropped the ball on steroids in major league sports.”
Strupp noted in an earlier E&P report in 2006 that “Wilstein’s discovery marked the first real press probe into which substances and supplements baseball players were using, and what effect they were having on their accomplishments, abilities and health.” “But then a funny thing happened,” Strupp wrote in his account of the media’s response. “Instead of being praised for discovering a questionable act by a baseball star in the middle of a record-breaking season, Wilstein was vilified.”
Wilstein "noticed a bottle of androstenedione and opened up a can of worms," SA Today baseball columnist Hal Bodley wrote in 2005. "This was baseball's feel-good story that no one, including Selig and the union, wanted tainted by a performance-enhancing supplement few of us knew anything about."
Wilstein, Bianchi wrote, “deserves a spot in Cooperstown for setting the record straight on a bogus record; for uncovering baseball’s dirty little secret when nobody else would … “Back then, baseball, the national media and everybody else associated with the game buried their heads in the euphoric sands of the time and ignored what was literally right in front of their eyes. While everybody else rooted for the story, Steve Wilstein rooted out the truth.”
Wilstein, in several columns, criticized the weak early testing by baseball. “Baseball may think it’s satisfying Congress and fooling the public with its drug-testing plan, but it’s probably doing neither,” Wilstein wrote on August 27, 2002 as the sport shaped its first stab at testing _ anonymous and without punishments. “More than likely, it will result in greater drug use, not less, as players figure out how and when they can take steroids and beat the tests.
“It will do nothing to reduce the perception, suggested by several players, that steroid use is rampant. Worst of all, it sends the message to young fans and prospects that the national pastime has a high tolerance for steroids.” Those tests ultimately found 104 players using performance-enhancing drugs, but all the names were kept anonymous—until it was revealed by Sports Illustrated in 2009 that Alex Rodriguez was among them. A-Rod then admitted he had been injected with a steroid from 2001 through 2003. Wilstein criticized players and owners when they reached agreement on a new drug-testing program in January, 2005, calling for more banned substances, a 10-day penalty for first time users, and the release of the names of those who test positive.
“Don’t be fooled,” Wilstein wrote the same day. “The new policy … is progress but it’s still just a bunt, not a home run in the effort to rid baseball of performance-enhancing drugs
Performance-enhancing drugs
Performance-enhancing drugs are substances used by athletes to improve their performances in the sports in which they engage.- Types of performance-enhancing drugs :...
. … It’s more PR and a dangerous delay in acting decisively.” The penalties were paltry, Wilstein wrote, and the program still didn’t call for random, unannounced, year-round testing, nor did it include amphetamines. Wilstein’s lengthy investigation of amphetamine use by players in 2005 was followed a few months later by baseball’s strongest testing program, which included amphetamines for the first time and much stronger penalties for failed tests.
On January 11, 2010, Wilstein's suspicions and Jose Canseco's allegations of McGwire's steroid
Steroid
A steroid is a type of organic compound that contains a characteristic arrangement of four cycloalkane rings that are joined to each other. Examples of steroids include the dietary fat cholesterol, the sex hormones estradiol and testosterone, and the anti-inflammatory drug dexamethasone.The core...
use were confirmed by Mark McGwire
Mark McGwire
Mark David McGwire , nicknamed "Big Mac", is an American former professional baseball player who played his major league career with the Oakland Athletics and the St. Louis Cardinals. He is currently the hitting coach for the St...
in a statement to and interview with the Associated Press and later interviews with Bob Costas
Bob Costas
Robert Quinlan "Bob" Costas is an American sportscaster, on the air for the NBC network since the early 1980s.-Early life:...
and others by McGwire. Upon the news, many sports columnists and media spoke of Wilstein's vindication and CNN.com asked Wilstein to provide his views in an op-ed piece. Wilstein wrote that McGwire should be banned from Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
for life and that his acts hurt baseball more than those of Pete Rose
Pete Rose
Peter Edward Rose , nicknamed "Charlie Hustle", is a former Major League Baseball player and manager. Rose played from 1963 to 1986, and managed from 1984 to 1989....
.
Professional writing and photography careers
Wilstein approached the issues of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball not as a beat writer, but as a journalist with vast experience writing about those drugs in the Olympics—including seven Summer and five Winter games. He also had been a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America since 1972, covering World Series and playoff games and writing about the game throughout the year. His writing style was distinguished by its depth of detail about players and events, among them: Rickey Henderson’s romp to the stolen base record; the drug-related deaths of pitchers Eric Show and Rod Scurry; Glenn Burke’s battle with AIDS; Ted Williams’ emotional appearance at the All-Star Game shortly before his death; Kirk GibsonKirk Gibson
Kirk Harold Gibson is a former Major League Baseball player and currently the manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks. As a player, Gibson was an outfielder who batted and threw left-handed...
’s World Series homer on two injured legs; and Curt Schilling’s “bloody sock” performance in 2004 as the Boston Red Sox rose to world champions after an 86-year drought.
Wilstein interviewed and profiled all the major stars of baseball over the past three decades, as well as many from earlier eras, including Ted Williams
Ted Williams
Theodore Samuel "Ted" Williams was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 21-year Major League Baseball career as the left fielder for the Boston Red Sox...
, Mickey Mantle
Mickey Mantle
Mickey Charles Mantle was an American professional baseball player. Mantle is regarded by many to be the greatest switch hitter of all time, and one of the greatest players in baseball history. Mantle was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974.Mantle was noted for his hitting...
, Willie Mays, Duke Snider
Duke Snider
Edwin Donald "Duke" Snider , nicknamed "The Silver Fox" and "The Duke of Flatbush", was a Major League Baseball center fielder and left-handed batter who played for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers , New York Mets , and San Francisco Giants .Snider was elected to the National Baseball Hall of...
, Bobby Doerr
Bobby Doerr
Robert Pershing Doerr is a former Major League Baseball second baseman and coach. He played his entire 14-year baseball career for the Boston Red Sox . He led American League second basemen in double plays five times, tying a league record, in putouts and fielding percentage four times each, and...
, and Mark Koenig
Mark Koenig
Mark Anthony Koenig was an American shortstop in Major League Baseball. He played for 12 seasons from 1925–1936. He was the starting shortstop for the New York Yankees 1927 Murderers' Row team, and was the last surviving member of that legendary team...
, who had the locker between Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig on the 1927 Yankees.
Wilstein also profiled a wide range of people as a general reporter, sportswriter, business writer, foreign correspondent and columnist, including: Mother Teresa, Indira Gandhi, Andy Warhol, Clint Eastwood, Edward Teller, Milton Friedman, Gen. Jimmie Doolittle, George Shultz, Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Bill Hewlett and David Packard, Nolan Bushnell, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Jerry West, Julius Erving, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Greg Norman, Tiger Woods, Annika Sorenstam, Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer, Venus and Serena Williams, Joe Montana, John Elway, Bill Walsh, John Wooden, Dean Smith, Mary Lou Retton and Dorothy Hamill. In 1994, Wilstein led the AP's award-winning coverage of the Tony Harding-Nancy Kerrigan drama.
Wilstein graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1970 with a political science degree and began his career in journalism a year later working for United Press International
United Press International
United Press International is a once-major international news agency, whose newswires, photo, news film and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the twentieth century...
as a sports writer from 1971 through 1978.
Wilstein covered the last third of Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
’s career for UPI. His black and white photographs of Ali are exhibited at the Panopticon Gallery in Boston. Wilstein's color images of the Boston Red Sox have been exhibited at the Griffin Museum gallery in Boston
Wilstein left UPI to accompany his wife, Cynthia Reader Wilstein, on her three-year assignment to Kathmandu, Nepal as communications officer for UNICEF. Their daughter, Tara, was born in Kathmandu in 1980. He briefly served as a foreign correspondent for UPI in New Delhi, covering Indira Gandhi’s return to power and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He also worked as a photographer for several international organizations.
Upon returning to the United States in 1981, Wilstein joined the AP in San Francisco and later became the San Jose correspondent, covering the boom years of Silicon Valley, medical research at Stanford University, the glory years of the San Francisco 49ers and the rise of two young stars on the Oakland Athletics
Oakland Athletics
The Oakland Athletics are a Major League Baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League. From to the present, the Athletics have played in the O.co Coliseum....
-- Jose Canseco
José Canseco
José Canseco Capas, Jr. is a Cuban-American professional baseball manager, outfielder, and designated hitter for the Yuma Scorpions of the North American League and former Major League Baseball player. He is the identical twin brother of former major league player and current teammate Ozzie Canseco...
and Mark McGwire. In 1990, Wilstein became the AP’s national sports writer, then national sports columnist.