As Blackie Sherrod marked his eightieth birthday, shortly before the new millennium, he was still writing two columns a week for the Dallas Morning News and still entertaining readers with funny stories and sharp observations. Sherrod's comic style is reminiscent of Mark Twain and Damon Runyon (two of his favorite writers), but his voice is distinctively Texan. He was born, raised, and educated in the Lone Star State and has spent his entire journalistic career there. Sherrod has been named Texas Sports Writer of the Year sixteen times and has had immense influence as a sports editor in Fort Worth and Dallas, where he assembled and coached veritable all-star teams of writers. Sherrod's public admirers include many of the athletes and coaches he has covered, such as golfer Don January, former University of Texas coach Darrell Royal, and former Dallas Cowboys linebacker Lee Roy Jordan. "To me," Jordan...