Meet The Sports Writers

[Bill Burgess]

Joseph N. Henderson---AKA Joe Henderson

Born: February 11, 1951
Died: Still Alive

Tampa sports writer;
Tampa Tribune, 1974 - 2008

Joe Henderson has been with The Tampa Tribune since 1974, and has covered all aspects of sports - local, state and national. He is known for blunt opinions and for telling readers exactly what is on his mind, whether it's popular or not.

[Bill Burgess]

William J. Simmons---AKA Bill Simmons

Born: September 25, 1969, Worcester, MA
Died: Still Alive

ESPN sports writer:

Bill's wikipedia page
Bill Simmons (b. 1969) is a columnist for Page2 on ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine. He is also known by the nicknames of "The Boston Sports Guy" or the "Sports Guy". His ESPN.com column is written from the viewpoint of a passionate Boston fan, and often uses extended analogies and references to pop culture in his columns.

He moved to Los Angeles at the end of 2002 to work as a writer for the Jimmy Kimmel Show. He has since left the show to work full-time for ESPN. He has signed a contract to remain with ESPN until 2010.

Simmons currently hosts his own podcast on ESPN.com and iTunes titled "The B.S. Report". When he began his podcast on May 8, 2007, until June 14, it was called "Eye of the Sports Guy". He has also filmed segments for the television series E:60.

He set the record for the longest chat on ESPN's Sportsnation on November 28, 2007, breaking Rob Neyer's previous record. He did the chat to support ESPN's fund raising efforts for the Jimmy V Foundation for cancer. Neyer has since re-broke the record on March 31, 2008 on the opening day of the baseball season. The record now stands at 10 hours and 56 minutes.

He also "officially" announced his candidacy for the position of Milwaukee Bucks general manager.

Bill Simmons, "The Boston Sports Guy", first gained notoriety as a freelance sports columnist with his own website on AOL. Later, he was added to the roster of ESPN's "Page 2" columnists and propelled the page and himself to widespread popularity. He was recruited as a writer for _"Jimmy Kimmel Live" (2003)_ based on that work.

Authored:
Now I Can Die in Peace: How ESPN's Sports Guy Found Salvation, with a Little Help From Nomar, Pedro, Shawshank, and the 2004 Red Sox
The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy
The Fourth Star

[Bill Burgess]

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[Bill Burgess]

Bob Elliott

Born: September 10, 1949, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Died: Still Alive

Toronto sports writer;
Ottawa Citizen, sports writer
Toronto Sun, 1987 - present

Article: Bob Elliott by Bill Lankhof

Growing up in Kingston, Toronto Sun baseball writer Bob Elliott must have felt a little like the guy batting behind Reggie Jackson or like someone trudging on stage after Patsy Cline. You know ... tough acts to follow. His grandfather, Ed, played for the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball club and is in the Hockey Hall of Fame as a referee. His dad, a local curling legend, is enshrined in the Kingston Hall of Fame and the Queen's University football hall of fame.

"I was just a second baseman who couldn't hit a curve," said Elliott, after being nominated at the Baseball Writers Association of America meeting in New York for the Taylor Spink Award and induction into the writer's wing at Cooperstown. "My father," he says, "would be proud."

In more than a quarter century of covering baseball for newspapers in Ottawa and since 1987 for the Sun, he has hit pretty much every curve life has thrown at him, becoming one of Canada's top sport writers. He'd break more stories in a year than some would in a lifetime.

He has chronicled the great and the small achievements in baseball in this country.

He was there when the Blue Jays won their World Series, he was there when the Expos were young and when they died, he was there with his Mississauga minor baseball teams in victory, he was there when his son, Bobby, hit a home run and he was there when Joe Carter hit his.

It doesn't matter much to Bob where the baseball is being played, or who is playing it. It just matters that it is being played.

"I think I like it because it's the most honest game in the world. I remember watching Yvan Cournoyer in the playoffs when I was a kid and asking my dad why he couldn't score in the playoffs. Dad said it was because they had a shadow on him. It didn't seem fair that guys could hang all over him.

"You don't have someone grabbing Reggie Jackson's bat when he's trying to swing."

Honesty. Fairness. Respect. They're all pretty much part of how people describe Elliott, now 58 and living with his bride, Claire, in Mississauga.

His son Bobby is with the Toronto accounting firm, Grant & Thornton, and his daughter, Alicia, is national account manager for Style at Home magazine.

"Bob has more connections in the world of Major League baseball than some baseball managers," says Toronto Sun sports editor Dave Fuller.

Yet, it is what Elliott has done for Canadian baseball's grassroots that he is often recognized.

Bob has been an ongoing positive influence on an entire country for the past 25 years -- and counting. Never has there been more Canadian college players, Canadian minor league players and as many contributing major leaguers from the Great White North than in the past decade and it's guaranteed every one of those players, their parents and coaches have reached out at one time or other for advice and counsel from Bob," writes Richard Griffin, president of the Toronto chapter of the Baseball Writers of America, in the letter nominating Elliott for the Hall of Fame.

A player agent in the U.S. likes to tell the story about how he was trying to impress the father of a Canadian player with his baseball contacts. He mentioned representing players such as Jeff Reardon and other ‘name’ players. Somewhat flummoxed, the agent mentions he's been talking to Bob Elliott. The father, finally impressed, stopped him dead: "You KNOW Bob Elliott!!!"

Bob hates it when people tell that story. "It's not because I write about the Blue Jays, I think baseball people know me more because I'm involved with Canadian baseball."

More than a decade ago, he started running a draft list of Canadian players like Baseball America does. It went on the Sun website. "I saw how hard these kids worked and they got zero recognition," says Elliott. In 2000, there were 490 Canadian kids playing at U.S. colleges; today there are more than 700.

In 1998, there were 66 Canadians in the minors -- today there are 111, with 53 more on independent pro teams. If there is a baseball prospect between Salmon Arm and Betty's Cove, then Elliott will either know about him or know the scout who does know about him.

When Bob isn't at a ballgame, he'll be in his office, on the phone -- always on the phone until two or three in the morning talking to writers, scouts or agents on the west coast.

His love for the game comes from his father, whose influence still hangs over him.

"It was 1967 and I worked part time at the Kingston Whig-Standard. It's March and they had an opening in the sports department.

"I said I'd take it as soon as school was out. They said they couldn't wait. I went home and told mother. She cried. Father had gone to Queen's.

"Grandfather had gone to Queen's. I was supposed to go to Queen's. Dad just said, 'Leave it with me,' and a couple days later mother said OK, but you've got to talk to father. I figured this would be a snap.

"That's when he told me if I became a sports writer I couldn't be like the guy in Boston in 1941 who left Ted Williams (who had an on-going battle with the press) off an MVP ballot because he didn't like him.

Years pass. Bob's father passes away. "It's 1993 and I'm filling out my MVP ballot and I've got Albert Belle second and I'm thinking, 'He's a jerk' and I move him to sixth.

“And as I'm sitting there ... I remembered what father said. I moved him back to second. You judge people by what they do, not by the way they treat you. But, how spooky is that?"

So he walks the diamonds with peewees and dreamers, with George Brett and Jason Bay. And whether it's the kid hooked on Bazooka Joe or the idol with a cheek full of chaw, he never treated them much different. They all got respect.

Maybe that's why Bob always gets it back, too.

July 25, 1999: Presenting Bob Stevens with his Hall of Fame plaque.

[Bill Burgess]

Stephen T. Hirdt---AKA Steve Hirdt

Born: February 11, 1951, Brooklyn, NY
Died: Still Alive

Elias Sports Bureau
Steve Hirdt, executive vice-president of the Elias Sports Bureau, has branched out into writing. He started by writing for ESPN.com's Page2 website briefly before moving to ESPN The Magazine to write a column titled "Do the Math" which focuses on statistics.
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Steve Hirdt (Statistician. Born, Brooklyn, Feb. 11, 1951.) Since he joined the Elias Sports Bureau in 1970 while still an undergraduate at Fordham, Stephen T. Hirdt has become one of the nation’s most respected sports statisticians. From 1982-2005, Hirdt was director of information for ABC-TV’s “Monday Night Football,” working over 400 telecasts, including seven Super Bowls. He worked with Howard Cosell (q.v.), Don Meredith, Frank Gifford (q.v.), O.J. Simpson, Joe Namath (q.v.), Al Michaels, Dan Dierdorf, Dan Fouts, Dennis Miller, and John Madden. Hirdt is also a contributing writer to ESPN the Magazine (since 1998). His first major television position was in 1976, when he began a 20-season run as director of information for major league baseball’s network telecasts by ABC and then CBS. Hirdt was a commentator and analyst for Yankees telecasts on the MSG Network (1989-2001). Through it all, he served as executive vice president of Elias, the premier sports statistical organization in the country, which serves as official statistician for Major League Baseball, the N.F.L., N.B.A., N.H.L., A.F.L., and M.L.S. Other senior staff at Elias includes two of Hirdt’s brothers, Peter and Tom, as well as Chris Thorn, John Carson, John and Santo Lombardo, Alex Stern, and Bob Waterman. Under long-time Elias president Seymour Siwoff (q.v.), the staff has also included the late Jay Chesler (q.v.), Bob Rosen, and the late Rocky Avakian. (The Bill Shannon Biographical Dictionary of New York Sports is an open database of sports biographies maintained by Jordan Sprechman and Marty Appel.)

[Bill Burgess]

Moss H. Klein

Born: July 27, 1950, Newark, NJ
Died: Still alive

Newark sports writer;
Newark Star-Ledger

Moss Klein (Sportswriting. Born, Newark, N.J., July 27, 1950.) Now deputy sports editor of the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger, Moss H. Klein was the paper’s Yankees beat writer for 17 seasons (1976-92). Klein went on the beat four years after joining The Star-Ledger and landed in the middle of a tumultuous period of Yankees history. His first season marked the reopening of the renovated Yankee Stadium and the first Yankees pennant since 1964. Previously, Klein had been primarily a basketball writer and was president of the Metropolitan Basketball Writers (1973-75). He was a columnist for The Sporting News for 10 seasons (1982-91) and served as chairman of the New York chapter of the B.B.W.A.A. in 1983-84. Klein also co-authored Damned Yankees (with Bill Madden (q.v.)) in 1990. After leaving the Yankees beat, he worked on the desk of The Star-Ledger and was named deputy sports editor in 1996. His father, Willie (q.v.) was the paper’s sports editor for over 30 years (1962-93) and his older brother, Dave (q.v.), was a sportswriter and columnist there (1961-95).---(New York Historical Society---Museum & Library)---The Bill Shannon Biographical Dictionary of New York Sports is an open database of sports biographies maintained by Jordan Sprechman and Marty Appel. We welcome public and scholarly contributions and suggestions.

--------------------1986.

[Bill Burgess]

Charles William Madden---AKA Bill Madden

Born: August 9, 1945, Teaneck, NJ
Died: Still alive

New York sports writer;
Graduated University of South Carolina
UPI, sports writer, 1969-1978
New York Daily News, sports writer, 1978 - present; covered New York Yankees, 1979-89, sports columnist, 1989-present.
Bill was voted to receive the Spink Award in 2010, the lifetime achievement award for sports writers.

Bill was born in 1946 and grew up in Oradell, New Jersey ... graduated from Bergen Catholic High School ... majored in journalism at the University of South Carolina ... was a sports writer with UPI for nine years before joining the New York Daily News in 1978 ... was the New York Yankees’ beat writer for the paper from 1980-88 and became national baseball columnist in 1989 ... has written five books on baseball ... served as a member of the Hall of Fame Screening Committee for the annual BBWAA ballot and the Historical Overview Committee that formulates the Veterans Committee ballots. Bill's father, Charlie Madden was a former Councilman in Oradell, NJ. His son, Tom is a police officer in Oradell, NJ.

Wikipedia
Bill Madden is an American sportswriter for the New York Daily News. A member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, he has served on the Historical Overview Committee of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2005, 2007 and 2008, helping to select candidates for the final ballots presented to the Veterans Committee. Madden grew up in New Jersey, and graduated from Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell. He was a spostwriter with UPI for nine years before he joined the Daily News in 1978, and covered the New York Yankees before becoming a columnist in 1989. He has written the books Damned Yankees: A No-Holds-Barred Account of Life With "Boss" Steinbrenner (1991, with Moss Klein), Zim - A Baseball Life (2001, with Don Zimmer), Pride of October: What it Was to Be Young and a Yankee (2003), and Bill Madden: My 25 Years Covering Baseball's Heroes, Scoundrels, Triumphs and Tragedies (2004).

Bill Madden (Sportswriter. Born, Teaneck, N.J., Aug. 9, 1945.) Starting as a general sports reporter for U.P.I. (1970-78), Charles William Madden became a leading baseball writer and then columnist with the Daily News. Madden began covering baseball at U.P.I. but became a Yankees beat writer with the Daily News and began writing a Sunday baseball column. He was among the first to recognize the news value of baseball collectibles and has written extensively about memorabilia. In this vein, Madden was also among the first to write about the vast collection of Yankees limited partner Barry Halper. For many years, he has done a rating of major league annual yearbooks. Both at U.P.I. and as a columnist and national baseball writer at the Daily News, he has covered post-season, All-Star Game, and World Series baseball. Madden has also authored or co-authored books on baseball, the Yankees in particular, one of which was Damned Yankees (1990) with Moss Klein (q.v.). He was chairman of the New York chapter of the B.B.W.A.A. in 1981-82. (New York Historical Society---Museum & Library)---The Bill Shannon Biographical Dictionary of New York Sports is an open database of sports biographies maintained by Jordan Sprechman and Marty Appel. We welcome public and scholarly contributions and suggestions.

Authored:
Damned Yankees: A No-Holds-Barred Account of Life With 'Boss' Steinbrenner, 1991, with Moss Klein
Pride of October: What it Was to Be Young and a Yankee, 2003
Bill Madden: My 25 Years Covering Baseball's Heroes, Scoundrels, Triumphs and Tragedies,2004


July 25, 2010 at his Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.----------------------------2004.

[Bill Burgess]

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[Bill Burgess]

Kenneth E. Nigro---AKA Ken Nigro

Born: October 23, 1938,
Died: Still Alive

Baltimore sports writer;
Queens, NY, 1-year old, (April 9, 1940 census)
Baltimore Sun, sports writer, 1965-82
Graduated Colby College (Waterville, Maine), 1960 (majored in Spanish)
Baltimore Orioles, Public Relations, 1982, 1984.
New York Yankees, PR Director, 1983
Boston Red Sox,

Father: Victor, born New York, 1906?; Mother: Edna A., born New York, 1908?;

Ken has been with the Lindos Sueños program since its inception, and has helped in a variety of roles. Ken has been a baseball man his entire professional career. He covered the Orioles for the Baltimore Sun for many years. He has also worked as the Director of Public Relations for the Yankees, and worked with the Orioles, Padres, and Red Sox. Ken is a graduate of Colby College

article:
Journeyman, By Kevin Rousseau

His Boston Red Sox business card says he is “Consultant-Director, Fantasy Camp/Cruise.” But don’t let the card fool you. When it comes to Major League Baseball, Ken Nigro ’60 is plugged in.

“He completely hides how connected and influential he is,” said Charles Steinberg, former Red Sox executive vice president for public affairs, now with the Dodgers. “He’s like the wealthy woman who dresses in rags because she doesn’t want you to know she’s rich.”

Nigro’s riches have come over a long baseball career, half of it spent covering the sport as a writer for the Baltimore Sun and the second half spent working for the Baltimore Orioles and Red Sox.

“He’s been a jack of all trades in the baseball world for many years including spring training, fantasy camp, media relations, public relations,” said Larry Lucchino, Red Sox president and chief executive officer. “He’s a seasoned veteran.”

Like the old-timer in the bullpen, Nigro is the wise sage in a front office known for its youth. In fact he’s been around baseball as long as many of his Red Sox colleagues (including Galen Carr ’97 and Brian O’Halloran ’93) have been alive.

Nigro may have grown older with the game, but the game, he says, never gets old. “Every game is a little different,” he said. “I've been fortunate to be around some of the greats, like Earl Weaver, and to see players like Koufax, Mantle, and Mays.”

He’s grateful for his baseball-related career—and he’s well aware that it almost didn’t happen.

Nigro came to Colby from New Jersey as a 100-pound asthmatic freshman, hoping to benefit from Maine’s clean air. He put on 40 pounds, he recalls, and was in the minority for the time as a guy who didn’t join a fraternity (“I couldn’t have gotten a date no matter what I did,” he said, during an interview in the press box at Fenway Park. “They called us GDIs. Goddamn Independents. We were like outcasts.”).

He majored in Spanish, which still comes in handy when he works at Red Sox camps in the Dominican Republic, but back then he was unsure what to do after graduation. Ironically, a failed job interview set him on the right course.

Nigro was interviewing at an insurance company in New Jersey when the interviewer stopped him. “He said, ‘You don’t want to work here. Let me ask you something. If you could do one thing that you wanted, what would you do?’”

Nigro remembers his reply, “I have some interest in maybe becoming a sportswriter,” he said. The interviewer countered with, “Then why don’t you do it?”

He did, first at the Long Branch (N.J.) Daily Record and the Hagerstown Morning Herald before landing a job at the Baltimore Sun. He stayed for 17 years. “I was doing what I wanted to do,” Nigro said. “I would wake up every morning and couldn’t wait to get to work.”

And Nigro was a great reporter, said Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy, who started his career at the Sun in the 1970s. In fact, to this day, Shaughnessy credits Nigro with teaching him the core values of their craft.

“He was fearless and not afraid of the consequences of what people would think,” Shaughnessy said. “He would protect sources.” And the veteran offered his protégé valuable advice: “Never touch the players’ food, respect their space, don’t become buddies with them.”

“He taught me how to act like an adult,” Shaughnessy said. “It was helpful to me to have that sort of role model right out of the gate.”

In 1982, after a dozen years covering the Orioles, Nigro literally joined the club, in public relations. After a year with the Orioles, he went to work for George Steinbrenner as the New York Yankees’ director of public relations. In 1984, like a journeyman ballplayer, Nigro returned to the Orioles, and when Larry Lucchino and Charles Steinberg left the San Diego Padres for Boston, Nigro joined them.

“There were certain roles that he played that we thought would be useful to us,” Lucchino said. “He has a certain track record of reliability, and he’s a source of a lot of general ideas with regard to on-field and off-the-field activities because he’s been around the game for thirty-five years.”

Nigro is a baseball fixture, and the game has treated him well. “He was an old-looking young guy (then) instead of young-looking old guy (now),” Shaughnessy said. “He hasn’t aged in thirty years.”

The secret to longevity, as in life, may be finding your calling and sticking with it. “It’s what I've always done,” Nigro said, as the game got underway on the Fenway green below. “I still do enough writing for the cruise and the fantasy camp to still think I’m a newspaper guy. Next to being a newspaper guy, this is pretty good.”

With Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy---Ken Nigro: at Fenway Park

[Bill Burgess]

John William O'Connell---AKA Jack O'Connell

Born: November 4, 1948, Bronx, NY
Died: Still alive

Sports Writer;
Bergen Record (Hackensack, NJ), sports writer, 1980 - 1988, (covered New York Mets)
New York Daily News, sports writer, (covered New York Mets)
Hartford Courant (CT), sports writer, 1989 - 1999, (covered New York Yankees)
Baseball Writers of America Association (BBWAA), secretary / treasurer, October 21, 1992 - present
MLB.com, (3 years)

Jack O'Connell has covered Major League Baseball the past 30 years for three New York-area newspapers and one Internet site. He covered the Mets for nine seasons (1980-88) with the Bergen (N.J.) Record and New York Daily News and the Yankees for 11 seasons (1989-99) with the Hartford Courant. O'Connell was the national baseball columnist at The Courant for five years and a general assignment reporter at MLB.com for three years.

He is the national secretary-treasurer of the Baseball Writers? Association of America representing 700 active members in 25 chapters throughout North America. In that role since 1993, O'Connell conducts the annual balloting of the Most Valuable Player, Cy Young, Jackie Robinson Rookie of the Year and Manager of the Year awards as well as the annual election for the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

He represents the BBWAA on issues concerning player access and press box working conditions and coordinates with MLB officials the annual distribution of press credentials to BBWAA members.

O'Connell is the chairman of the BBWAA Historical Overview Committee, which meets annually to establish Hall of Fame Veterans Committee ballots, and is a member of the Veterans Committee on Managers and Umpires. The native New Yorker was raised in the Bronx and on Long Island and resides in Bayside, Queens.
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Jack O’Connell (Sportswriter. Born, New York, Nov. 4, 1948.) Primarily a baseball writer for more than three decades, John William O’Connell became the national secretary-treasurer of the B.B.W.A.A. in 1993. O’Connell started his sportswriting career with the Suffolk Sun on Long Island in 1967. When that paper folded, he went to the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chronicle in 1969 and then became a baseball writer on a regular basis at the Oakland Press of Pontiac, Mich., in 1971. O’Connell returned to the metropolitan area in 1977 with the Bergen Record. While with the Record, he served as chairman of the New York chapter of the B.B.W.A.A. (1985-86) and then moved to the Daily News (1987-89). In 1989, O’Connell joined the Hartford (Conn.) Courant, where he regularly covered the Yankees through 2004. Among his duties with the B.B.W.A.A. is conducting the annual award selections and the Baseball Hall of Fame elections. (The Bill Shannon Biographical Dictionary of New York Sports is an open database of sports biographies maintained by Jordan Sprechman and Marty Appel.)

December 2, 2007. L-R: Colin Gunderson, Fergie Jenkins, Jeff Idelson, Jack O'Connell.

[Bill Burgess]

Nickolas Anthony Peters---AKA Nick Peters

Born: April 1, 1939, San Francisco, CA
Died: Still Alive

San Francisco sports writer;
San Francisco, CA, 1-year old, (April 5, 1940 census)

Father: Andrew, born Greece, 1909?; Mother: Hope Deligiannis, born California, 1915?;

The Sacramento Bee

Nick is the recipeint of the 2009 Hall of Fame Spink Award.

Nick Peters, whose name is synonymous with baseball in San Francisco, having covered more Giants games than anyone in a career that spanned 47 seasons (1961-2007), was elected the 2009 winner of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Peters was introduced to baseball by following the Pacific Coast League's San Francisco Seals in the early 1950s and by listening to radio recreations of Major League games before the Giants' arrival in 1958. He spent the majority of his career on the Giants beat at the Oakland Tribune and Sacramento Bee and also worked for the Berkeley Gazette and San Francisco Chronicle.

A San Francisco native, Peters was a traveling beat writer for more than three decades. He served for many years as the team's correspondent for Sports Illustrated and The Sporting News. Peters, who retired in 2008, had attended all 50 of the Giants' home openers and authored five books on the team.

A BBWAA member since 1964, Peters twice served as chairman of the San Francisco-Oakland Chapter and is a member of the BBWAA's Historical Overview Committee that helps formulate the Hall of Fame's Veterans Committee ballots. He has won multiple San Francisco Press Club awards and, while serving in the U.S. Army, was a two-time Alaska sportswriter of the year.

Former longtime Sacramento Bee baseball writer Nick Peters, retired following the 2007 season after covering the Giants since 1961. Peters has not missed a San Francisco home opener since the franchise relocated from New York for the 1958 season. Peters, who covered the Giants for the Berkeley Daily Gazette, Oakland Tribune and The Sacramento Bee, finished third in voting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America in 2007, and second in 2008.

[Bill Burgess]

Mark L. Whicker

Born: July 19, 1952
Died: Still Alive

The Orange County Register

[Bill Burgess]

Robert Michael Nightengale---AKA Bob Nightengale

Born: June 26, 1956, Texas
Died: Still Alive

Los Angeles Times, sports writer
Graduated Arizonia State University (Phoenix, AZ),
Los Angeles Times, sports writer, 1995
Kansas City Star,
Arizona Republic,
USA Today, sports writer

Father: Merlyn Eugene; Mother: Lorraine Mary Baum;

Bob Nightengale is a USA Today Sports baseball columnist and baseball awards voter from Minnesota. He graduated from Arizonia State University. Previously, he worked for the Los Angeles Times, Kansas City Star and the Arizona Republic. He has been a Major League Baseball writer since 1986. Nightengale has won numerous writing awards for feature and investigative stories.

[Bill Burgess]

Robert John Neyer---AKA Rob Neyer

Born: June, 22, 1966
Died: Still alive

ESPN sports writer;
Attended University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS) (but did not graduate. Left in his 4th year.)

Neyer moved to Kansas City in 1976. He attended the University of Kansas the same four years as Danny Manning, and is now happy to wait another 20 years for the Jayhawks' next championship.

Rob Neyer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rob Neyer (born 1966) is a baseball author and, since 1996, a columnist for ESPN.com. A disciple of major sabermetrics figure Bill James, his writing is an outlet for everyday fans to gain insight that statistics-centered analysis can offer.

Early Life and Education
Neyer spent the early years of his childhood in the upper Midwest and later moved to the middle Midwest, close to the Kansas City area. He attended the University of Kansas, where he picked up a passion for baseball after reading Peter Golenbock's Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Bill James Baseball Abstract 1984. He is currently married and living in Portland, Oregon. Uninterested in school, Neyer left college during his fourth year and took a job roofing houses.

Writing career
Neyer was introduced to Bill James by a casual friend, Mike Kopf, nine months after dropping out of college. He was soon hired as a research assistant. Neyer's first project with James was helping compile material for the book This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones, a collection of material from the Abstracts. After four years under the tutelage of James, Neyer took a job at STATS, Inc., before joining ESPNet SportsZone, ESPN.com's forerunner, in 1996.

Until 2004, Neyer's work was available without subscription, but it is now part of the Insider service and can thus only be read with a paid subscription. Since 2007, the bulk of Neyer's ESPN work has shifted to his daily blog.

Neyer is the author of Feeding the Green Monster, Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Lineups, Baseball Dynasties (co-authored with Eddie Epstein), The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (co-authored with Bill James), Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders, and Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends.

Writing Style
In February 2001, Neyer infuriated many Yankees fans when he used many objective statistical measures, such as win shares and Clay Davenport's Fielding Translations to show that Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter consistently rated among the worst fielders at his position. He is regularly cited in the "Keeping Score" column in the New York Times and elsewhere. Bill James describes him as "the best of the new generation of sportswriters. He knows baseball history like a child knows his piggy bank. He knows how to pick it up and shake it and make what he needs fall out."

On March 6, 2007 Neyer set the record for longest ESPN.com chat at 6 hours and 37 minutes. His ESPN.com chat record was broken when Bill Simmons chatted for 7 hours and 4 minutes on November 28, 2007. He was able to regain the record from Simmons with a 12 hour and 1 minute chat on Opening Day of the 2008 baseball season, March 31, 2008. In his closing remark, he quoted Ring Lardner, "The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong -- but that's the way to bet."

In December 2007, Neyer was declined admission to the Baseball Writers Association of America, members of which vote for Baseball Hall of Fame candidates and several annual awards including the Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award. While 16 other internet baseball columnists were admitted in their first year of eligibility, ESPN's Neyer and Keith Law were refused due to the BBWAA's perception that Law and Neyer did not attend enough games in person.
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Rob Neyer (born June 22, 1966) is a baseball author and, since 1996, a columnist for ESPN.com. A disciple of major sabermetrics figure Bill James, his writing is an outlet for everyday fans to gain insight that statistics-centered analysis can offer.

Early life
Neyer spent the early years of his childhood in the upper Midwest and later moved to the middle Midwest, close to the Kansas City area. He attended the University of Kansas, where he picked up a passion for baseball after reading Peter Golenbock's and the Bill James Baseball Abstract 1984. Uninterested in school, Neyer left college during his fourth year and took a job roofing houses. [Rob Neyer - Best Job in the World]

Writing career
Neyer was introduced to Bill James by a casual friend, Mike Kopf, nine months after dropping out of college. He was soon hired as a research assistant. Neyer's first project with James was helping compile material for the book This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones, a collection of material from the Abstracts. After four years under the tutelage of James, Neyer took a job at STATS, Inc., before joining ESPNet SportsZone, ESPN.com's forerunner, in 1996.

Until 2004, Neyer's work was available without subscription. For a few years, it was part of the "Insider" service and could thus only be read with a paid subscription. Since 2007, the bulk of Neyer's ESPN work has shifted to his daily blog, which is no longer Insider-only.


Rick Schabowski/ESPN.com's Rob Neyer

[Bill Burgess]

Thomas Murray Boswell

Born: October 11, 1947, Washington, DC
Died: Still Alive

Washington sports writer;
Graduated St. Stephen's School in Alexandria, VA. Bachelor's degree (Amherst College, 1969)
Washington Post, sports writer, 1969 - present

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thomas M. Boswell (born 11 October 1947 in Washington, D.C.) is an American sports columnist.

Boswell has spent his entire career at the Washington Post, joining it shortly after graduating from Amherst College in 1969. He became a Post columnist in 1984. Writing primarily about baseball, he is credited with inventing the total average statistic.

In addition the Post, he has written for Esquire magazine, GQ, Playboy and Inside Sports. He also makes frequent television appearances.

Authored:
How Life Imitates the World Series (1982)
Why Time Begins on Opening Day (1984)
Strokes of Genius (1987)
The Heart of the Order (1989)
Game Day: Sports Writings 1970-1990 (1990)
Cracking the Show (1994)
Diamond Dreams (with Walter Iooss) (1996)

Awards
Best sports journalism, 1981, the American Society of Newspaper Editors