Michael Kruse is a staff writer at the St. Petersburg Times. He started there in June 2005 after two years at the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y., where he covered the Yankee beat and two towns and was the writer at large -- though not all at the same time. In earlier professional lives, Kruse, 28, edited the ACC Basketball Handbook, scouted high school hoops talent for a national recruiting service and traveled the coast-to-coast, couch-and-floor circuit as a "senior" writer for Basketball America (R.I.P.). He was born in Los Angeles, grew up in Wellesley, Mass., and was a history major at Davidson College in North Carolina.