ESPN Analyst Stephen A. Smith Holds First Book Signing In Ridgewood

RIDGEWOOD, NJ — ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith, known for his passionate style of sports talk, joined fans in Ridgewood Tuesday to sign copies of his new book, "Straight Shooter: A Memoir of Second Chances and First Takes".

For his first stop in a book tour, the featured commentator on ESPN's "First Take" brought his enthusiasm for sports to Bookends, where he autographed copies of his memoir released just that morning.

"Ya boy's gonna be in the house," Smith said in a video promoting his Ridgewood tour stop. "If I can be there, y'all can be there."

Smith had appeared live on ABC's Good Morning America that morning prior to coming to Ridgewood, where he was seen, in a video posted to Facebook, interacting with fans.

In another video of him near the end of, what he called in the caption, an "amazing day," Smith was shown talking about how he had felt "weird," albeit humbled and blessed, to see himself on the cover of a book he wrote.

"I'm an author," he said in the video. "I had never wrote a book before. It is crazy to be in this situation."

"Thank you everyone for all your support," the video caption said.

His memoir, the Good Morning America hosts said, sheds light on a side of Smith that fans have not yet seen. In the book, Smith talks about his mother, whom he said inspired the title as she herself was a "straight shooter"; his father, whom he had a fraught relationship with; and his two daughters, whom had a large impact on the person he became.

In a segment of his GMA interview, he spoke about the vow he had made to his mother before she passed— that he would not write the book until after she died.

"She knew I was not going to sugarcoat things she had to deal with, and that I was going to tell it straight. So, she said, "I do not want to be on this Earth with people knowing my business," Smith told the hosts. "She was very private, and I honored that."

He said he had written, in large part, about his daughters, because both of them are the reason he is who he is today.

"I love them dearly," he said. "Their mere existence has made me a far better man than I was before I became a dad."