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Renowned Sports Writer Dies at 69
Renowned
Sports Writer
Dies at 69
OBITUARY
Mar 14, 2025 8:03 AM CDT

Renowned Sports Writer Dies at 69

Bestselling author John Feinstein dies of natural causes at 69

(Newser) - John Feinstein, one of the country's foremost sports writers and the author of numerous bestselling books, including the groundbreaking A Season on the Brink about college basketball coach Bob Knight, died unexpectedly on Thursday. Feinstein was 69. He died of natural causes at his brother's home in McLean,...

Rick Hummel Covered Baseball for a Half-Century
Celebrated Baseball Writer
Was 'Always Fair'
obituary
May 22, 2023 5:01 PM CDT

Celebrated Baseball Writer Was 'Always Fair'

Rick Hummel covered Cardinals, MLB for a half-century

(Newser) - Rick Hummel, an esteemed sports writer who covered the St. Louis Cardinals and Major League Baseball for five decades for the Post-Dispatch until his retirement last year, has died. He was 77. Hummel died in his sleep at his St. Louis-area home Saturday after a short, aggressive illness, the newspaper...

Renowned Sports Writer Collapses, Dies at World Cup

Grant Wahl, one of the best-known US journalists in the soccer world, is dead at 48

(Newser) - Grant Wahl, one of the most well-known soccer writers in the United States, died early Saturday in Qatar while covering the World Cup match between Argentina and the Netherlands. He was 48. US media seated near him said Wahl fell back in his seat in a section of Lusail Stadium...

Who Are the 'Griffey Three' Who Voted Against Jr.?

Of 440 voters, a record 437 said yes

(Newser) - Ken Griffey Jr. resoundingly got into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday, and controversy surrounds the pick. Not over Griffey's qualifications—630 home runs, 10 straight Gold Gloves, not a whiff of steroid scandal, and, yes, even a candy bar made his selection a no-brainer. Instead, it's...

Transgender Sportswriter's Suicide Leaves Questions

Why did Christine Daniels turn back into Mike Penner?

(Newser) - Mike Penner’s apparent suicide comes loaded with questions about the LA Times sportswriter’s experience living as a woman named Christine Daniels. Penner’s public revelation that he was transsexual and would transition to the Daniels identity was much celebrated—she even wrote a blog about the experience called...

Web Didn't Kill Sportswriting; Lame, Humorless Writers Did

Writers today just don't know how to have fun

(Newser) - When the working day is done, sportswriters just wanna have fun—or at least they did 50 years ago, when hot-type dinosaurs like Gary Cartwright and his gonzo cohorts roamed Dallas in capes and leotards pretending to be Italian acrobats. But today’s mirthless philistines are doing more to butcher...

Newspaper Cuts Are Emptying Out Press Boxes

Papers cutting back baseball coverage

(Newser) - The independent baseball beat writer could be a dying profession as newspapers look to trim costs, the Wall Street Journal reports. In baseball-crazy cities like New York and Boston, not much is likely to change. "It would be suicide, quite honestly," says a Red Sox writer for the...

Updike: An Author 'Hoping to Talk to America'
 Updike: An Author 
 'Hoping to Talk to America' 
APPRECIATION
Jan 27, 2009 3:44 PM CST

Updike: An Author 'Hoping to Talk to America'

Superlatives hardly lacking in wake of writer's death at 76

(Newser) - John Updike, who died today at 76, was many things: Bob Ryan, in the Boston Globe, calls him the author of the “most spellbinding essay ever written about baseball.” For Carolyn Kellogg, in the Los Angeles Times, the first line of his story A&P displays a “...

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