Jeff Passan

Jeff Passan (born 1980 or 1981)^[1] is an American baseball sportswriter and author.

Jeff Passan
Passan in 2019
Born	1980 or 1981 (age 44–45) Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Alma mater	Syracuse University
Occupations	Sportswriter author
Years active	2004–present

Early life and education

Passan was born in Cleveland, Ohio.^[2] He is Jewish, and grew up attending Hebrew school.^[3] After graduating from Solon High School in suburban Cleveland, Passan attended the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, where he wrote for The Daily Orange and graduated in 2002 with a degree in journalism.^[2][4]

Career

Passan began covering baseball in 2004 at The Kansas City Star,^[5] before moving to Yahoo! two years later. After 13 years at Yahoo! (2006–18), he announced that he was joining ESPN's baseball team in January 2019. In early 2022, Passan signed a four-year, $4 million contract extension with ESPN.^[6] While working at ESPN, he makes guest appearances on SportsCenter, Get Up, The Rich Eisen Show, The Pat McAfee Show and other ESPN studio shows.^[7]

In 2018, while at Yahoo! Sports, Passan declined to submit his Baseball Hall of Fame ballot after Hall of Famer Joe Morgan circulated a letter urging voters to bar players linked to performance-enhancing drugs.^[8] He has since argued that the Hall’s continued exclusion of candidates such as Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens represents a failure of the voting process.^[9]

In March 2024, Passan's reporting detailed that Los Angeles Dodgers interpreter Ippei Mizuhara had transferred at least $4.5 million from Shohei Ohtani’s bank account to an illegal bookmaker, leading to Mizuhara’s dismissal and law-enforcement inquiries.^[10][11][12]

Passan is the author of The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports,^[13] and the co-author of Death to the BCS: The Definitive Case Against the Bowl Championship Series.^[14]

Awards and recognition

Passan has been a member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America since 2004, while he was at The Kansas City Star.^[15] The National Sports Media Association named Passan as the National Sportswriter of the Year in 2021 and again in 2023.^[16][17]

Passan received the 2022 Dan Jenkins medal for Excellence in Sportswriting for his ESPN article, "San Francisco Giants Outfielder Drew Robinson's Remarkable Second Act."^[18]

Personal life

In 2023, Passan was struck by a falling tree limb after a storm, fracturing his back. He retained the use of his limbs and extremities.^[1][19]