If you love sports, learn to write

Talk about a dream job. When not busy with other pursuits (he's also a columnist for the Washington Post, a guest commentator on NPR, and a color commentator for United States Naval Academy football games), John Feinstein spends his time immersing himself in one professional sport after another.

This he does to be able to turn out books ("A Season on the Brink," "A Good Walk Spoiled," "A March to Madness," "The Punch," and "Next Man Up" are among his best known).

But it also allows Feinstein to rub shoulders with sports celebrities and to catch glimpses of the sporting world that go far beyond the reaches of even the best of sport journalists.

Like the idea of hanging out with Mike Mussina and Tom Glavine? Reading Feinstein's latest, "Living on the Black," is as close as most of us will ever come.