Al Silverman, a magazine editor and publishing executive, died March 17 at his home in Manhattan. He was 92. Mr. Silverman collaborated with Chicago Bears halfback Gale Sayers on an autobiography that was adapted into “Brian’s Song,” the popular 1971 television movie about the friendship between Mr. Sayers and his dying teammate, Brian Piccolo.

Early on, Mr. Silverman was well known in sports publishing. He was a freelance writer for several sports magazines and wrote books about (or with) Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and Frank Robinson. Later, he left the sports world and joined the Book-of-the-Month Club as executive vice president and editorial director, ultimately becoming president and chief executive before joining Viking Books as a general editor.

In his review of Mr. Silverman’s book, The Time of Their Lives, about postwar book publishing, the novelist and playwright Bruce Jay Friedman said, “It could have been written only by a ‘bookman,’ someone with printer’s ink in his blood and bones.”