About the authors: Pete Alfano

Pete Alfano is a senior writer and reporter who joined the Star-Telegram in 1998 and has a feeling that the designation of “senior” signifies his age, not status.

He has been in the newspaper business for more than 40 years, and while he really did not interview Babe Ruth, he was in his first tour of locker rooms when Nolan Ryan was a skinny, baby-faced pitcher for the New York Mets and the Cowboys were only Texas’ team.

Pete has covered just about every major sports event, from the Winter and Summer Olympics to several Super Bowls, the World Series, Daytona 500, NBA finals, Stanley Cup finals, world championship boxing matches, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open tennis, the Belmont Stakes, NCAA basketball tournament and major college football bowl games.

The first baseball game he covered was in the summer of 1969, when Bob Moose of the Pirates pitched a no-hitter against the Mets at Shea Stadium; he was in the same press box 17 years later when the ball went through Billy Buckner’s legs.

Although a native New Yorker, Pete adopted the Cowboys in 1960 — their inaugural season — when they lost all but one game — a 31-31 tie against the New York Giants, the team he loved to hate.