1989 J.G. Taylor Spink Award Winner
Jerome Holtzman


Jerome Holtzman (National Baseball Library)

Jerome Holtzman's fascination with sports manifested itself in the printed form. As a youth, his heroes were sportswriters. Upon graduation from high school he began his own career in the sports department of the Chicago Daily Times as a copyboy in 1943. After serving two years in the Marine Corps, he returned to newspaper work. He has covered baseball with the Chicago Sun-Times (22 years) and with the Chicago Tribune for well over 40 years.

Holtzman was a weekly contributor to The Sporting News for 30 years, both as a columnist and correspondent. He has written over one hundred articles for such magazines as the old Saturday Evening Post, Sport, Sports Illustrated and Baseball Digest. A strong editor as well as writer, his book No Cheering in the Press Box is a highly-praised collection of interviews with some of America's greatest sportswriters.

He is credited with inventing the save for relief pitchers in 1959, deriving a formula that evolved into the official statistic in 1966. In 1999, Holtzman was named official historian for Major League Baseball.

Fellow writer Joe Falls paid him the ultimate compliment: "There is no better baseball writer around, and certainly none more knowledgeable."

Complete list of J.G. Taylor Spink Award Honorees