A. S. "Doc" Young, who never held a full-time job at a mainstream daily newspaper, established a legacy in sports journalism through his extensive contributions to black weekly newspapers and weekly and monthly magazines and his several books about sports. One of the first African American members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, he combined strong powers of observation with an encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He was an advocate for African American athletes, but he criticized those who, in his eyes, were not good representatives of the black community. Although Young often wrote about social issues, business, politics, and entertainment as well as sports, he remained a sportswriter at heart. According to an unpublished interview with his son, Norman Gregory Young, the elder Young claimed sportswriters were more individualistic--and therefore more effective--in the way they saw and reported events than other journalists. As his son added, "He...