Spike Lee, Sports Scribe

By Stephen M. Silverman

Monday April 27, 1998 12:00 AM EDT

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Spike Lee, whose films ("Malcolm X," "Summer of Sam") sometimes have a documentary feel to them, is now entering the Fourth Estate for real. Lee, who turns 43 on Tuesday, has been hired to write a sports column for the new upscale Manhattan magazine Gotham, starting with the publication's third issue in May, reports New York's Daily News. In his debut effort, says the paper, Lee will write about his contention that Babe Ruth was African-American. "All I know is that basically he's writing a column for me and I was asked to pull a picture of Babe Ruth for it," Gotham editor Joseph Steuer told the Associated Press. (No stranger to print, in 1997 Lee wrote "Best Seat in the House," a memoir about growing up as a New York Knicks fan.) As for why Lee is being added to the masthead of his magazine, Steuer replied, "He is a quintessential New Yorker."