Attached to the number 8 since watching Willie Stargell and the Pittsburgh Pirates of the early 1970s, Hal Stern has been a baseball fan for more than 30 years. While leading his Little League team in walks and getting hit by pitches in 1972, he has since started coaching his own son in the Livingston National Little League and Softball program. When he's not following baseball, Hal is the co-Chief Technology Officer for Software at Sun Microsystems and a technical sponsor of Sun's work with mlb.com.

Baseball at all levels; Ice Hockey (NHL when it exists, ECHL and youth at all times); sports books; science fiction; particularly Corey Doctorow, Neal Stephenson, and Wiliam Gibson; anything having to do with the 1980 Winter Olympics; movies in which there's more audio devoted to explosions than dialog; ice cream (Ben & Jerry's rules); oatmeal raisin cookies; writing; heavy metal.