The work of Lee Jenkins has always stood out, even in the most crowded of arenas. While covering the New York Mets for The New York Times, Jenkins was named New York's best new sports writer by The Village Voice. Jenkins has covered teams on both coasts, including the Mets, New Jersey Nets and UCLA Bruins. But baseball has always earned a special place in Jenkins's heart. "I think when you grow up consumed with one sport -- watching and/or playing it every day of every year -- it can put you in position to ask better questions," says Jenkins. "When you ask better questions, you tend to get better answers."

Prior to joining SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and SI.com as a senior writer in September 2007, Jenkins wrote on a variety of sports during his four years (2003-2007) at the Times. Before that he covered UCLA basketball and football for the Orange County Register and the Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets for The Colorado Springs Gazette. A native of San Diego, Jenkins graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1999. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Elizabeth, and son, Austin.

Among the honors Jenkins has won for his journalism: first place in the New York Press Association (Sports Reporting) category, (2007); the Football Writers Association of America (Best Game Story), (2003) and the Colorado Press Association Best Sports Story (2000).

Jenkins says his favorite project at SI was a Sept. 29, 2008, story Virginia's Boy Wonders on a former amateur baseball coach in Hampton Roads and the legion of major-league players he helped produce. "I always wonder why certain places, at certain times, crank out a surplus of incredible athletes. Hampton Roads was never a baseball hotbed. But in the past decade we've seen David Wright, Ryan Zimmerman, Mark Reynolds, Michael Cuddyer, B.J. Upton, Justin Upton and several other major leaguers come from the same corner of Virginia. They give much of the credit to Towny Townsend, a colorful high-school and AAU coach who taught them to hit using Cool Whip lids. Towny died of cancer two years ago, but his legacy is certainly alive."

Extra Points

• Favorite SI Vault story: Livin' Large (June 16, 1997). "This Tom Verducci profile of Kevin Mitchell might be the funniest story I've ever read. Second would be this profile of Rickey Henderson, from June 23 2003, also by Verducci."
• Writers who have inspired my work: "I grew up reading Jim Murray in the Los Angeles Times and he made me want to be a sportswriter. My favorites now are Bill Plaschke, Tom Verducci, Joe Posnanski, Gary Smith, Charles P. Pierce, S.L. Price, Tom Junod, Tom Friend, Tim Layden, Dave Sheinin, Chris Ballard and Mark Kriegel. Those guys make me want to take more chances with my writing. They also make me want to quit." Person you would most like to cover: "The late Cool Papa Bell. The great Negro leagues baseball players have some incredible stories to tell, and anybody named Cool Papa would have to be a natural story teller."
• Hobbies: "Following Vanderbilt's football, basketball and baseball teams, to an unhealthy extent. Riding my beach cruiser on the Venice Boardwalk, from Marina del Rey to Malibu. Teaching my son to throw with his left hand."
• Favorite book: "Stolen Season, by David Lamb. It is the kind of book you can read a dozen times, and I have, about a writer's journey through baseball minor leagues, the perfect entrée to small-town America."
• Hidden Talent: "Making guacamole."

Updated 21 October 2009