A little something extra: here’s the author’s note that begins APPROACHING ALI:

Clay, hi. Great post: funny, smart, heart-felt. I hope that you’ll enjoy the book. Amazon has it at a good price right now, and I’m selling signed copies on eBay.

Wonderful story! Thanks for sharing.

Earl, hi. Thanks for the good word. Privately, Ali still talks trash — and shocks with how good he is at it. Inside, he’s no less Ali than he was in the 1960s and Seventies. A big difference, though, is that he has been made increasingly wise by his Parkinson’s and the ways he’s worked with it.

Thanks, Billy. I’m happy you enjoyed this excerpt from the book.

I posted this yesterday in the story about Kareem and Ali. It’s such a crying shame that his disease robbed the world of his wonderful big mouth and trash talking all these years. I mean big mouth and trash talking as positive as possible. He was the greatest trash talker of all time, bar none. My hero too. I think…

This is the best thing I have read in quite some time. Thank you Dave

Perhaps I’ll get that for my stocking!

I’m happy you liked my story, Tippy. Ali is The Man! As he has said time and again, “After me, there will never be another.” APPROACHING ALI would make a fine Christmas present to yourself. I promise you that you’ll never read a better, more fun book about The Greatest of All Time.

I was so very happy to see Ali thump Trump yesterday.

Too bad this book will be banned if Trump becomes president.