In the spring of 2004, Sen. John F. Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat, made a presidential campaign stop in Pittsburgh. Soltz went, curious about one of the generation's most famous opponents of the Vietnam War. He introduced himself, and the two men spoke briefly. Afterward, Kerry called Soltz at home. "He said, 'I just want you to know that when I came home from Vietnam, I was angry like you, and that's OK,' " Soltz recalled. "Nobody in my life understood what was going on in my head at the time. Not my friends, not my family. But when someone like...