After 45 years of professional writing, Province resident Tom Schuman finally achieved a lifelong dream — publishing his own book.

In February, Schuman published My Wide World of Sports: Travel Along on a Lifetime Journey of Bats, Balls and a Whole Lot More, a memoir of his decades as a sportswriter and magazine editor.

Reflecting on those years as an Indiana newsman, Schuman said telling others’ stories is what drove his career as a writer.

“It’s about trying to tell the stories of the people,” he said. “The games are great, but whether it was anything from Little League up to the professionals, it was about trying to get behind the people and what made them tick, what made them successful or what made them good entertainers.”

Schuman said attending a Province writing group inspired him to begin working on the book.

“I always wanted to write a book and I tried to do fiction several times and that’s really tough,” he said, adding the writing group “talked about writing your passion. And that was pretty easy for me because I came back to the sports again.”

My Wide World of Sports can be purchased directly from Schuman’s website or on Amazon.

Tom Schuman is a contributing writer for InMaricopa.