Dodd: Babe Ruth, an influenza outbreak and a forgotten baseball writer
From Rustin Dodd at The Athletic on March 20, 2020:
One summer day in 1918, a sportswriter named Edward F. Martin watched the Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago Cubs and clinch the World Series championship at Fenway Park. Then he sat down to write.
To his friends, Martin was known as Little Eddie, a nod to both his presence and his relative youth. He was still just 34 and known to be modest. He was popular among co-workers and rival newspapermen alike. One colleague at The Boston Globe would write that Martin “radiated good humor and wit but was always thoughtful and considerate of others.”
Martin had started working at the Globe in 1900, when he was still just a teenager. Soon, he worked his way up the ranks. By his early 30s, he had become a top protege of Tim Murnane, a former major leaguer who became a legendary baseball writer at the Globe, and when Murnane died of a heart attack at 65 in 1917, Martin succeeded him as the Globe’s lead baseball writer.
Read the full article here (subscription required): https://theathletic.com/1687465/2020/03/20/babe-ruth-an-influenza-outbreak-and-a-forgotten-baseball-writer/
- Related link: Get your free e-book copy of SABR’s When Boston Still Had the Babe: The 1918 World Champion Red Sox
Originally published: March 23, 2020. Last Updated: April 3, 2020.