Black sportswriter enters Baseball Hall of Fame p. 15

By: Editorial Staff

WENDELL SMITH, THE legendary sportswriter for the black-interest Pittsburgh Courier, will be the first African-American in the Writers Wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame when he is inducted in a ceremony at Cooperstown, N.Y., on July 31.
Smith, who died in 1972, is entering the Hall of Fame after two-year campaign for his induction led by Chicago Tribune baseball writer Jerome Holtzman, himself a Hall of Fame honoree. Larry Gross, columnist for the Chicago Defender, wrote recently that Smith's induction is comparable to the honor accorded Jackie Robinson, the first African-American in the Major Leagues, and the first inducted into the Cooperstown institution: "Like the election of Robinson led the way for the Willie Mays, Hank Aarons and Reggie Jacksons, the election of Smith into baseball immortality just may lead the way for other black writers such as Frank Young, Chester Harrison and Sam Lacy to gain their long-overdue recognition."