Alex Coffey

Sports enterprise writer

United States

I'm a Phillies beat writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer who has published a wide range of human-interest and investigative pieces over the last several years, principally in The Athletic and more recently in The New York Times. My stories have run the gamut from MLB to the NBA/WNBA, and to a more personal realm, when I wrote a first-person piece after my little sister was drafted by the Portland Thorns in the NWSL. Here are a few samples of my work. If you want to chat, I can be reached at [email protected]. Thanks!

Portfolio

Features

The New York Times
12/24/2021
A Christmas Visit That Changed Everything

After a long wait, Gil Hodges was elected to the Hall of Fame. For one of the many people whose lives he helped change with community work, Hodges was already a legend. For 72 years, David Schacker has held on to a tattered black-and-white photograph, now buried deep in a closet at his home near downtown Toronto.

The Athletic
From a bookstore to the Bronx: Inside the moment Cory Gearrin became a Yankee

SEATTLE - "I think great bookstores reflect the population and the cities that they're in," Cory Gearrin, the very-soon-to-be Yankees reliever, tells me. It's an overcast recent Friday morning and we're standing in the middle of the Elliott Bay Book Company, contemplating where to begin in a space that's akin to a corn maze for literature.

The Athletic
Joaquin Oliver died in Parkland shooting; Jesús Luzardo wants you to remember

Manuel Oliver doesn't like baseball. But for two straight summers, he went on a multi-week ballpark tour with his son, Joaquin, assessing which park had the best hot dogs, crowds, atmosphere. By the end, Joaquin had a new favorite - Fenway Park - and Manuel didn't have much of an opinion, because he still didn't like baseball.

Nytimes
08/04/2021
The Pitchers Who Know How Kumar Rocker Feels

The Mets not signing the 10th pick of the 2021 draft because of medical concerns brought back painful memories for players like R.A. Dickey and Carter Stewart. On Aug. 1, Carter Stewart, a starting pitcher for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball league, saw history repeating itself 7,071 miles away in Queens.

The Athletic
The brilliance and backstory of @OldHossRadbourn

Say you were in the midst of writing a dissertation. An essay that is comprised of hundreds of pages - the only thing standing between you and your Ph.D. - and the culmination of many years of studying that one specific topic.