Former 'Kansas City Star' Editor Dies

(AP) Joe McGuff, former editor of The Kansas City Star and member of the board of directors for the Royals baseball team, has died. He was 79.

McGuff, who was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig?s disease in 1999, died Saturday night at his home, the newspaper reported.

He started at the paper in 1948 as a sports reporter and became a columnist in 1966, covering the Kansas City sports scene for 38 years.

In 1986, McGuff was named editor and vice president of The Star and The Kansas City Times and oversaw the merger of the morning and afternoon newspapers. He retired from the newspaper in April 1992, the same month The Star won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.

?Joe always put The Star?s interests above his own, and Kansas City?s interests above The Star?s,? said current Star editor Mark Zieman. ?He wanted the paper to improve our community, not bludgeon it. But when facts supported it, he loved hard-edged, investigative reporting, especially if it involved misspent tax dollars or standing up for the little guy.?

He covered six Olympics, 31 World Series and 16 Super Bowls.

In 1985, he was enshrined in the writers wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. He also was a member of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.

McGuff was elected to the Royals board of directors in 1994 and helped with David Glass? plans to purchase the team in 2000.