* Lest we forget: Jerome Holtzman

Jerome Holtzman, “the dean” of baseball writers, died on July 19 at the age of 82.

Holtzman, who wrote for the Chicago-Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune, created the save, which has gone through several incarnations over the years and came under attack as being a “meaningless statistic.” He was a recipient of the 1989 J.G. Taylor Spink Award for “Meritorious contributions to baseball writing” and inducted into the International Jewish Baseball Hall of Fame in 2005.

He was also baseball’s “official historian” and the author of several books, including a new title about the Black Sox scandal. Other books written or edited by Holtzman include:

No Cheering in the Press Box, a series of interviews with other prominent sportswriters.
Chicago Cubs Encyclopedia
Jerome Holtzman on Baseball
Fielder’s Choice: An Anthology Of Baseball Fiction
The Jerome Holtzman Baseball Reader
The Commissioners : Baseball’s Midlife Crisis

Maury Allen, one of Holztman’s long-time contemporaries, told me in an e-mail

Jerry Holtzman happened to be my best pal among the sportswriters. I knew him for 50 years.[He] was a star sportswriter for over 50 years with the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune. He was known as the “dean” of baseball writers, created the save rule which made relief pitchers rich and was baseball’s official historian after his newspaper retirement.He wrote the best book ever on sportswriting called “No Cheering in the Press Box,” and he was considered a friend to everyone in baseball from the Commissioner to the lowest clubhouse boy. He often said his toughest chore in baseball was separating his suitcase on a road trip from those belonging to left handed pitcher Ken Holtzman of the Cubs.

Holtzman was remembered on NPR’s Morning Edition on July 23. There have been many testimonials to Holtzman’s career; here are just a few: the obituary from The New York Times, ESPN, and Richard Justice’s blog on the Houston Chronicle Web site. It always seems more meaningful when such sentiments come from one’s peers, the ones who really know him.