Leonard Koppett is the only sports journalist elected to both the baseball and basketball halls of fame. Moscow-born and New York bred, "Koppy" launched his newspaper career in 1944. Following college, he became a reporter and columnist for the New York Herald Tribune, later moving to NY Post. In 1963 he began the first of 16 years with the New York Times.

In addition to his Times assignments, Koppett authored sixteen books on sports, including: The Thinking Fan's Guide to Baseball (1967/1991), The Essence of the Game is Deception: Thinking About Basketball (1973), Concise History of Major League Baseball (1998/2004), 24 Seconds to Shoot: The Birth and Improbable Rise of the NBA (2003), and The Rise and Fall of the Press Box (2003), described as part autobiography and part memoir about changes in sports media coverage.

Koppett received the J.G. Taylor Spink Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992, and the Curt Gowdy Media Award by the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1994.