Dan Gutman (October 19, 1955) is an American author from New Jersey. A prolific writer, with over a dozen works set to be released in 2006 alone, Gutman has written 80 books, both fictional and non-fictional. He has had works released by such publishers as Penguin Books, Macmillan, Scholastic Press, and HarperCollins. Many of his books revolve around baseball, a sport which he has played and extensively followed throughout his life. Dan Gutman's father left Dan Gutman's family when he was young.
Most of his famous works are his series of & Me novels, also known as the Baseball Card Adventures, for children, which started with his 20th published work, Honus & Me, a story that was originally rejected by at least a half-dozen publishers. Each book in the series revolves around a child traveling back in time to meet a baseball legend; the first work was based on the premise of a boy finding a Honus Wagner T206 baseball card in an attic of his neighbor. Further books in the series feature Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Dorothy "Mickey" Maguire (the main character, Joe Stoshack, was supposed to meet Mickey Mantle, but there was an accident and he went back to the times of the AAGPBL instead), Abner Doubleday, Satchel Paige, Jim Thorpe, and Ray Chapman. According to Dan's official website, he currently is writing another addition to the series entitled Roberto & Me. The original story, Honus & Me, was made into a Turner Network Television made-for-TV picture entitled The Winning Season, starring Matthew Modine.
His other major series of children's literature is a set of over twenty books entitled the My Weird School series.
In addition, Gutman was also briefly a syndicated newspaper columnist and videogame magazine editor in the 1980s. He also wrote the book The Million Dollar Shot about a boy who gets the chance to win a million dollars by making a foul shot.
A graduate of Rutgers University, Gutman lives in Haddonfield, New Jersey with his wife and two children.