New Jersey sports writer Jerry Izenberg honored with 2025 Russell Gabay Award
JANUARY 24, 2025 — Jerry Izenberg, a Newark native who has covered sports for the Star-Ledger (and now NJ.com) for more than 60 years, is the 2025 winner of the Russell Gabay Award.
Established in 2018 by the New Jersey-based Elysian Fields Chapter and Goose Goslin Chapter, the Russell Gabay Award honors a person or entity who has demonstrated an ongoing commitment to baseball in New Jersey.
Izenberg was born in Newark on September 10, 1930. As a boy he loved going to Ruppert Stadium to watch the Newark Bears, the minor league affiliate of the New York Yankees, and the Newark Eagles, a Negro Leagues team that featured future Hall of Famers Larry Doby and Monte Irvin. Izenberg later became lifelong friends with each of them.
Izenberg graduated from Rutgers University-Newark, where he was editor of the college newspaper while working as a copy boy at the Star-Ledger. His journalism career was interrupted by the Korean War, then he returned home to work as a sportswriter at the Paterson Evening News and the Star-Ledger before joining the New York Herald Tribune under legendary sports editor Stanley Woodward.
Izenberg returned to the Star-Ledger in 1962 as a columnist and is still there more than 60 years later. He was at every Super Bowl from the first through the 53rd; he attended 55 consecutive runnings of the Kentucky Derby; and it is believed he covered more of Muhammad Ali’s fights than any other sportswriter. In 2018, he was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame — one of the many honors he has received.
Izenberg has returned often to his childhood love of baseball. In addition to his countless columns about the national pastime, Izenberg’s lengthy bibliography includes Larry Doby in Black and White: The Story of a Baseball Pioneer; The Greatest Game Ever Played: The Incredible Battle Between the New York Mets and the Houston Astros for the ’86 National League Pennant; and Baseball, Nazis & Nedick’s Hot Dogs: Growing up Jewish in the 1930s in Newark.
Gabay, a native of Springfield, New Jersey, was a sports producer for ESPN, HBO, and MLB Network. At the time of his death in 2016 at the age of 59, he had been vice president and executive producer of international broadcasting for MLB for 20 years.
The Russell Gabay Award is presented annually, with the honoree selected by a vote of the membership of the Elysian Fields and Goose Goslin Chapters of SABR, as well as Russell Gabay’s sister, Lori Gabay. Nominees are accepted each year through December 31.
To learn more about the Russell Gabay Award, click here.
Originally published: January 24, 2025. Last Updated: January 23, 2025.