Longtime Auburn Sports Editor Leo 'Mr. Baseball' Pinckney Dies

By: Leo Pinckney, The Auburn Citizen's sports editor for 37 years and a major backer of minor league baseball in the city, died Monday. He was 89.

Pinckney, who turned 89 on Sunday, died at the hospital after he was taken there by ambulance Sunday night with difficulty breathing, his son Peter said. He had been ill for much of the past year.

"He's always been a great role model and a great man," Peter Pinckney told The Citizen. "He's going to be missed by the whole city of Auburn."

Leo Pinckney, who had recently resumed writing his weekly Sunday column, always marveled at the affection he received from the community.

"I have had such a wonderful life and family," he once said. "I was always thrilled with all of the great people I met in sports."

Pinckney was instrumental in bringing and keeping a New York-Penn League baseball franchise to Auburn.

After Auburn's Border League team folded in the early 1950s, Pinckney joined others in the central New York city to convince the New York Yankees to put a team at Falcon Park. The stadium, built in the 1920s, had fallen into disrepair, but snow covered the field when Yankee officials came to Auburn. They granted the city the team and Auburn has been a member of the New York-Penn League ever since. Pinckney has served as the team's president at different times.

In 1984, Pinckney was named the New York-Penn League's president and held that position until 1993. The league named the division the Auburn team plays in after him. In 1993, Pinckney helped lead the effort to build a new Falcon Park.

Among many honors following his retirement, Pinckney was named "Mr. Baseball" at the 1998 baseball winter meetings for his lifelong dedication to the sport.

Pinckney was a 1936 graduate of Auburn High and started at The Citizen Advertiser in 1937. After time away for military service in World War II, he became the newspaper's sports editor in 1946. He retired in 1983 and continued his weekly column.

Pinckney was an Associated Press correspondent for 30 years and contributed to the New York Daily News, New York Times and The Sporting News. Pinckney served as president of the Vernon Downs chapter of the United States Harness Writer's Association.