Bob Broeg

Bob Broeg (rhymes with “egg”) was a titan of sports writing and knowledge in St. Louis for six decades. He was a local boy through and through, growing up in south city, attending the University of Missouri, and working in St. Louis (aside from a very brief time early in his career in Boston), from 1946 until his death. He held his dream job, St. Louis Cardinals beat writer, at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, before being promoted to sports editor, and then to assistant to the publisher. Even into his so-called retirement, he continued to write a Sunday column and also special columns whenever the mood struck or events warranted. He hosted a KMOX radio show with friend and rival columnist Bob Burnes, where he opined about sports for years. He lent his name to the St. Louis SABR chapter and regularly attended the Bob Broeg Chapter monthly meetings. He was an author of many books, including one on his favorite team, the Gas House Gang. Most importantly, he was highly respected by so many in the St. Louis area, both the people he covered and his many readers and listeners.

Robert William Patrick Broeg was born on March 18, 1918, to Robert Michel Broeg, a bakery deliveryman, and Alice (Wiley) Broeg. He tells the story in his inimitable style, “So in the afternoon in the kitchen at Virginia and Pulaski in South St. Louis, Madame Mal Practice used her forceps like ice tongs, grabbing me fore and aft, rather than left and right. One tong scarred my left eye, permanently blurring my vision. No corneal transplants back then. The other tong dug into the back of my cranium. So, yeah, I had a hole in my head from day one.”1 His father got another doctor to come by to mend the baby’s wounds. In 1923, little brother Frederick Charles Broeg joined the clan.

Even with a bad left eye, Broeg had an early inclination toward reading and writing. His parents bought all four St. Louis papers every day (grand total — eight cents). He read them all but his favorite paper was the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, at least that is what he insisted after being a Post-Dispatch employee for five decades. He particularly liked the sports pages, baseball and boxing being his main interests, just as they were the major sporting interests in the country at the time. He also devoured the ‘Baseball Joe’ series of books about fictional baseball titan Joe Matson. He received the first in the series at age nine from his uncle while recuperating in the hospital from appendicitis. After that, he asked for, and received, additional books in the series for birthdays and Christmases.2

May 30, 1927, was a special day for nine-year-old Broeg. His uncle Will was tasked with bringing him to the ballpark for a Memorial Day doubleheader. Sitting in the right field bleachers, his most vivid memories of the Cardinal sweep were the sights and sounds of the ball hitting the bat and the smells of popcorn and peanuts. He also remembered Billy Southworth, future St. Louis pennant-winning manager, patrolling right field. It would be the first of many games for Broeg.3

Even though Broeg didn’t remember him from his first game, his favorite player growing up was “The Fordham Flash” Frankie Frisch. He tried to imitate his hitting and fielding style, including learning to switch hit. He was right-handed, so hitting right with a bad left eye probably was good incentive to bat from the left side. In later years, Broeg was lucky enough to become friends with Frisch, including penning a book titled, “The Pilot Light and the Gas House Gang,” featuring Frisch prominently.

Broeg attended Mt. Pleasant grade school. The historic building is still in existence today, no longer a school, but an apartment building. During the summers he attended dime admission movies three days a week, and played baseball, basketball, and soccer whenever he could. His protective parents forbade him from playing football after they found out he had practiced with the school team. His father wasn’t wild about him playing soccer either, but Broeg played organized soccer for three years before dad said no more. He was modest about his playing ability, writing in his autobiography, “Over the years I got to play with some pretty good baseball and basketball teams, if only because I was smart enough to organize more talented guys to play on teams I managed. Naturally, I reserved a starter’s role for myself.”4 As a teenager, he attended an open Cardinals workout at Sportsman’s Park, not because he thought he could play professional baseball but because he wanted to meet Frankie Frisch. Instead, the Cardinals’ Cuban coach Mike Gonzalez ran the workout. After the tryout, Gonzalez assessed Broeg in his heavily accented English, “You fiel’ hokay, boy, but you throw like old womang!”5

After he realized he would never be a professional baseball player, becoming a sportswriter was Broeg’s focus. His fourth grade teacher saw his interest in reading and writing and arranged a meeting with Post-Dispatch baseball writer J. Roy Stockton, Broeg’s favorite columnist. He was impressed by both Stockton and the Post-Dispatch operations.

Broeg’s favorite season from his childhood was 1930. His beloved Cardinals won 22 of their final 26 games to take the pennant. He loved the big offense era and delighted in Jim Bottomley and Frankie Frisch’s exploits, along with the bench players on the team. He also remembered attending the last game of the year, after the Cardinals clinched, witnessing the major league debut of Cardinal legend Dizzy Dean, who pitched a three-hit, 3-1 complete game victory over the Pirates. A week later he attended his first World Series game, witnessing Jimmie Foxx bury the Cardinals with a home run in the ninth inning off a Burleigh Grimes slow curve. Broeg remembered and told stories like this for the rest of his life.

Broeg went to high school at Cleveland High, which is now known as Cleveland Junior Naval Academy. The historic building he attended school in sits silently in his old neighborhood, waiting for redevelopment. He was president of his senior class and the baseball team manager, finagling his way onto the baseball team and playing a few times in his senior year, garnering a few base hits and a game-ending catch.

During the summers, Broeg and his friends played baseball every day of the week (except Sunday) on the Cleveland High field. Typically they’d work odd jobs in the morning to earn enough money to buy used baseballs from the Cardinals and the Browns, sold at the princely rate of three scuffed balls for a buck. On Saturdays, some young adults would join in and they’d play triple headers. Sundays were reserved for league games while wearing real uniforms at other locations in the city.

In high school Broeg was developing his comma-rich, descriptive writing style, writing regularly for the school newspaper and penning the baseball team season summary in the 1936 yearbook. One paragraph reads: “Spectators almost witnessed a rarity of rarities in the season finale — a no-hit, no-run game; but, alas, and alack, Bob Gerst, Beaumont’s star chucker, failed on only three occasions to keep Cleveland hitless. John Lamping, Bob Broeg, and Norv Bleitz were able to secure one base knocks off the Beaumont north-paw who pitched a nifty ball game, while his team mates were raising riot with the offerings of the South Siders’ pitchers.”6 During his junior year, he wrote a story about Branch Rickey, which included an opportunity to interview the great man. Rickey was impressed by the story and promised Broeg a job with the Cardinals the summer of 1936 before he went off to college.

Broeg’s father, who started working for a living after dropping out of grade school, did not insist that his sons work. His reasoning was that once they started working they’d never stop so they should enjoy their childhood. Broeg didn’t start working regularly until after he graduated high school in December 1935. He helped the Post-Dispatch prep sports editor cover high school events. After those temporary assignments went well, he started covering Public High School League triple header baseball games on Saturdays. He’d cover the games, then go down to the Post-Dispatch and file the stories. That work netted him $7.50 a week. He also wrote a column for a South St. Louis free delivery weekly newspaper, getting 10 cents a column inch. Broeg never struggled coming up with enough words to fill a full column and take home two dollars.

In April 1936, he showed up at the Cardinals’ offices and met traveling secretary Clarence Lloyd. Lloyd didn’t know what to do with Broeg, but eventually made him a ticket taker. The best part of this job for Broeg was that when the fifth inning ended, the ticket takers were freed up to watch the rest of the game. And sometimes, particularly during weekday games, not all ticket takers were needed, so Broeg could watch the whole game free. After high school closed for the summer, he filled his evenings by working as the official scorer and public address announcer at the St. Louis Softball Park. He took home one dollar a night for two evening games.

Broeg started attending the University of Missouri Journalism School in the fall of 1936. He joined the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, largely because, by washing dishes after meals, his monthly house bill was halved to $27.50; tuition for the semester was $30. Broeg’s total spending allowance, based on what his parents could afford, was $35 a month, so he was just barely able to squeeze by, often subsisting on care packages from mom.

While at Missouri, Broeg worked for the student newspaper (of course). Foreshadowing his own newspaper career, he wrote a weekly column. He also got a job in the university public relations department. This helped cement his lifelong love of Ole’ Mizzou and the football program. The legendary football coach, Don Faurot, for whom the Missouri football field in now named, started coaching Missouri one year before Broeg enrolled and pulled the football program out of the doldrums. Broeg met J. Roy Stockton again when the newspaperman came to town to cover a Washington University-Missouri football game. He remembered Broeg from their earlier meeting and told him to send some examples of his writing. From that point forward, Broeg lobbied Stockton for a job with the Post-Dispatch.

Summer work in 1937 was as a ticket taker for the Cardinals again. But in the depression in 1938, Broeg could only manage some umpiring in local leagues. He took a college course and was still able to continue with Missouri in the fall. In the summer of 1939, The Sporting News called. They offered him a job at $12.50 a week which he gratefully accepted. But when the Cardinals’ publicity department offered him $20, he took that job on the condition that the Cardinals clear it with The Sporting News. They didn’t, and editor J.G. Taylor Spink was not happy. Broeg wrote him an apology; Spink wrote him a brief reply, “My dear Bob: As you get older, you’ll realize you’ve got to consider the feelings of others.”7 It was the right decision for young Broeg. Not only did he make more money, he also worked with another new employee, and a person he would end up covering in the future, a young man named Bing Devine, future general manager of the Cardinals.

When Broeg got back to the University of Missouri, he accepted a job with the Associated Press in the Columbia office. He was able to work for them and finish his degree. He also met Dorothy Carr, his future wife. After his Christmas, 1940 graduation, he inquired, but the Post-Dispatch had no position for him. So he continued working for the Associated Press in the Jefferson City office on a temporary assignment on the state capital press team. His main job was to send stories out via the punch machine. He also got some experience editing reports sent to small newspapers. After several months, the AP put his name on a list of ‘unassigned’ employees. The office in Boston picked him up. He said goodbye to his girlfriend and family and moved to the East in late summer of 1941.

Broeg was assigned as the ‘night side rewrite man’ in the Boston AP office. His shift from 5 PM to 2 AM left him days available to go to ball games. Boston, like St. Louis, had baseball teams in both leagues, so he had plenty of opportunities to go to games. The Boston Braves were run by Bob Quinn, who had headed the St. Louis Browns back in the 1920s and were managed by Kansas City native Casey Stengel, so Broeg had some common foundations to make connections. But he definitely wanted to get into more sports writing and return to St. Louis and kept writing to J. Roy Stockton. The AP promised him a move to Wichita but it didn’t materialize. Finally, his mentor wrote back and told him while the Post-Dispatch didn’t need anyone, the rival St. Louis Star-Times had a need in their sports department. Broeg contacted sports editor Sid Keener and got the job along with more money, a princely $42.50 per week.

Broeg’s time in Boston wasn’t long, only about 18 months, but he was a witness to some amazing individual achievements. He saw Ted Williams hit .406, Lefty Grove win his 300th game, Paul Waner achieve 3,000 hits, and pitcher Jim Tobin hit four consecutive home runs, a pinch-hit home run followed by three home runs the following day while pitching. He remembered these events fondly and these experiences added to his baseball-encyclopedic mind.

Broeg happily moved back to St. Louis in the summer of 1942. He was making more money, working in the sports department of a newspaper in his hometown, covering his Cardinals, and able to live at home and enjoy mom’s home cooking. His main job was as a copy reader, making sure the baseball game play-by-play accounts were correct. His Cardinals were great in 1942, winning 43 of their final 53 games and ending with 106 wins, two more than the rival Dodgers — plus a World Series win over the Yankees.

Uncle Sam drafted Broeg in 1941 but, due to his bad eye, ruled him 4F. After the war began, he tried to enlist in the Marines but they were reluctant due to his eyesight. He signed a waiver but they told him to go home. Late in 1942, he got the call from the recruiter informing him that they would accept his enlistment. He shipped out to San Diego for boot camp the third Tuesday in December and returned to St. Louis in February, 1943. The Marines assigned him as a recruiting sergeant for St. Louis, instead of an overseas deployment, due to his bad eye. The return home worked out perfectly, allowing him to wed Dorothy Carr on June 19, 1943. The Marines found out about his writing and journalism experience and transferred him to Washington, DC. They wanted to put out a magazine on par with the Navy’s and enlisted the writer to help. Luckily for the young couple, a contact also got Dorothy a position in the capital so they were able to stay together. He led the effort on the magazine but also found time to research and write the first of his many books, Don’t Bring That Up! Skeletons in the Sports Closet, which wasn’t published until April, 1946.

In another lucky break (Broeg considered his life a long series of lucky events) Leatherneck Magazine wanted a Marine to cover the 1944 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns. They checked their roster and found four card-carrying members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Three of them were deployed overseas but Broeg was right there in Washington, DC. So he was sent to St. Louis to cover the Series. He remembered that Series fondly — especially because the Cardinals won — while speaking on the banquet circuit and in St. Louis Chapter SABR meetings.8

In 1945 the Marines were finished with Broeg. He made a good impression on pretty much everyone he met or worked for because he had several job offers to choose from. But it was really no contest. The Post-Dispatch offered him $75 per week to work in the sports department. This was young Broeg’s dream fulfilled. He would write sports for the Post-Dispatch for the rest of his life.

He had many different sports assignments, including both his beloved Cardinals and Missouri Tigers football. In 1949, he noticed Cardinals traveling secretary Leo Ward wearing a bow tie. He thought it held up better to the rigors of travel and looked so much better, so he asked Ward to show him how to tie it. From that moment forward, he always wore a bow tie, which became his signature. He also stayed more than busy writing. While working for the paper he also freelanced for The Sporting News and other magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post.

The managing editor of the paper, Ben Reese, knew Broeg was a great writer for the paper. In 1950, he insisted Broeg be made beat writer for the Cardinals, but longtime writer and Broeg’s boss, J. Roy Stockton, held the position and didn’t want to give it up. So Broeg was assigned to the Browns instead. The Browns were a terrible team, run by entertaining owner Bill Veeck. In 1951, Broeg had a part to play in the Eddie Gaedel affair. The evening before the event, he was drinking with owner Veeck. He didn’t tell Broeg what was going to happen but he did tell him to make sure there would be a Post-Dispatch photographer at the second game of the doubleheader the next day. Typically, by August the Browns were comfortably out of the pennant race and photographers might only cover the first few innings of the first game and then leave. Broeg told the photographer to stay, which led to the classic photo of Gaedel batting in the second game of the doubleheader. It also left Broeg with a story he would tell when prompted, including his brief interview of the tiny pinch hitter in the press box.

By 1952, Broeg was the lead on the St. Louis Cardinals’ beat, the job he always wanted. But, as usual in any business, great performance leads to promotion. In 1958 J. Roy Stockton retired and Broeg was made sports editor. But he didn’t give up writing. He was a writing editor. In fact, managing editor Raymond Crowley told Broeg, somewhat derisively, that he was “90 percent writer and 10 percent editor.”9 Broeg loved the editor position because he could pick and choose his travel assignments, going to cover all the events he really wanted to see. He also completely shaped the sports department, hiring all the writers from 1958 to 1977.

In 1958, Broeg was elected President of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. One of his duties was to attend the banquet circuit of writers’ dinners around the country. He was embarrassed that St. Louis didn’t have a dinner and the writers hardly ever met. So he resolved to start an annual dinner in St. Louis and organized the first event. Guests at that dinner included Stan Musial, Frank Frisch, Rogers Hornsby, and George Sisler. If that wasn’t enough, the NBA All-Star Game was in St. Louis that year, so Broeg scheduled the dinner to allow the NBA players to attend, which helped drive even more ticket sales. The dinner is still held annually, still has a premier lineup of guests, is highly anticipated, and has raised a huge amount of money for scholarships. He considered it one of his proudest legacies.10

Broeg continued following the Cardinals, writing about the team and his favorite player as an adult: Stan Musial. While he didn’t exactly coin Musial’s nickname, he did popularize it in writing. He heard Brooklyn fans murmuring when Musial came up to bat but couldn’t understand what they were saying. Traveling secretary Leo Ward told him they were saying, ‘Here comes that man.’ And so he wrote about it, noting that Stan was “The Man.” He also wrote five columns a week while editing the sports section of the paper. In 1964 he co-wrote Stan Musial, the Man’s Own Story, the iconic autobiography of the great player.

The pressures of being an editor affected Broeg’s health. He quit his three-pack-a-day cigarette habit in 1954 but the stresses of the job impacted him. He also had a temper. He was a fit 6-foot, 195-pounder with strong convictions and not shy about defending them. When in college, he had a near fight with Leo Durocher while working publicity for the Cardinals (stopped before blows landed by a Dodger trainer). His AP supervisor in Boston was a difficult personality and they nearly tangled one evening after some drinking. He punched a drunk who made him drop his evening snack of cookies on the floor of a hotel elevator in the 1950s, and almost slugged Howard Cosell at a boxing promotion. As sports editor, he tried to make sure that when his anger surfaced, he kept it general, not wanting to focus it on one of his employees. There are stories of thrown office equipment, but none of people being bullied or belittled. The stress, along with late night sessions with sports figures, helped lead to an ulcer. Eventually his doctor told him to stop drinking to let the ulcer heal.

Broeg was an old-school reporter. He was critical at times, but players respected him because he knew his stuff and told the truth. However, he didn’t report items that would impact the players’ privacy, such as late-night escapades. He would also act to keep them out of trouble. Cardinal broadcaster Harry Caray was routinely very hard on Ken Boyer, magnifying every mistake the captain made over the radio. One day the players received word that Caray was coming down to the clubhouse. Boyer planned to confront him, but Broeg hurried to the door to get to Caray before Boyer. With one punch, Broeg laid out Caray. After walloping the broadcaster he turned to Boyer and steered him back to his locker with the advice that Boyer shouldn’t get physically involved with the media.11 In later years, when the Post-Dispatch ran a positive story on Caray when he was broadcasting White Sox games, Broeg was angry about the paper idolizing that broadcaster.12

There was no question that Broeg was the boss when he was the sports editor. He was very encouraging to his employees and very protective of his guys when someone from outside gave them problems. He was proud of his many years in the position, the people he hired and mentored, and the way he shaped the sports department.13

Broeg was a giant among the nation’s sportswriters, especially for someone reporting from a city not named New York. In a ‘farewell’ column in 1987, Post-Dispatch reporter Kevin Horrigan wrote of Broeg:

“During the 25 years from the end of the big war to 1970, Bob Broeg was one of the giants of this business. His baseball coverage and his sports columns reflected the tenor of his times, and indeed, helped set the tenor of sports coverage in America. He wrote more, and better, than all but a few sportswriters in America. He helped make the Cardinals the unofficial civic religion of St. Louis. He defined the Missouri Tigers in their glory years.”14

On November 1, 1975, after a year-long bout with lung cancer, Broeg’s beloved wife Dorothy died. The couple was childless. On July 23, 1977, he married Lynette Anton Emmenegger. With that marriage, he finally left his city apartment and moved into her house in the St. Louis suburb of Frontenac.

KMOX radio, the flagship radio station for Cardinal baseball, tapped Bob Broeg and St. Louis Globe Democrat sports writer Bob Burnes to host a regular radio show. There was nothing Broeg loved more than an attentive audience for his sports stories and he did the show for years, bringing his voice to St. Louis sports fans. His radio style was very genuine and filled with informative asides, just like his print columns. He also spent some time on television in the 1960s, hosting a studio show aired before Cardinal games.

Broeg was closely involved with the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was named to the Board of Directors in 1972, serving for 28 years. He also served on the Veterans’ Committee for many years. He took those responsibilities, along with the responsibility of Hall of Fame voting, very seriously. He always thought it was a shame that Ted Simmons, who he felt was a deserving candidate, was only on the ballot one year, so he always voted for ten players, not to get everyone in the Hall but to keep deserving guys on the ballot.

In 1977, Broeg was “promoted” to Assistant to the Publisher. This took him officially out of the sports department. He only wrote one column per week (instead of his normal five) and no longer was tasked with editing the sports page, but he noted he would never retire. In fact, since his newspaper obligations were lessened, his book writing picked up. He wrote or contributed to at least twenty books, most of which were published after this date. In 1978 he had a minor stroke but fully recovered. In recognition of his amazing career, he received the J.G. Taylor Spink writers’ award from the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979.

Broeg could wield profanity like a fencer would use his blade. Although he spent many years around baseball locker rooms and in male-only newsrooms and press boxes, he claimed he inherited the use of the profane from his Aunt Millie during his youth.15 He would tell wonderful stories peppered with salty language at mostly male gatherings such as the 123 Club and the St. Louis SABR Chapter meetings. But when a woman was present, his stories would change subtly. For example, instead of a throw coming to the infielder ‘cock high’ it might come in ‘waist high.’16 And if he did let an expletive slip when a woman was present, he’d always quickly apologize with an ‘excuse me dear.’17

As Broeg aged, he may have slowed down but his mind remained sharp as ever. He continued covering sports and speaking on the banquet circuit. In 1984, the St. Louis Chapter of SABR approached Bob Burnes to name the chapter after him. He politely declined. So the chapter then asked Broeg, who quickly agreed. This was the most fortunate turn of events in St. Louis SABR chapter history. He became an avid attendee at the monthly meetings, delivering his stories and sports insight month after month. He also provided assistance getting player guests at the St. Louis SABR conventions in 1979 and 1992.

Broeg’s eccentricities charmed people. Besides the signature bow tie, he was a voracious consumer of saltine crackers. He would complain about his stomach ‘boiling’ and the crackers and iced tea (which became his substitute for beer when his doctor told him to stop drinking) helped ease it. Fellow Spink Award winner and colleague Rick Hummel remembers on cold days, particularly at Missouri Tigers football games, Broeg would wear his winter boots but also put his feet in cardboard boxes to stay warm.18

Broeg’s awards are many, but he listed the ones he was most proud of in his autobiography. “I’ve received the University of Missouri Journalism School’s medal award and had the blushing pleasure of having the Society for American Baseball Research, of which I am a proud member, designate the local SABR branch as the Bob Broeg St. Louis chapter. Also, the Post-Dispatch is kind enough to designate their scholar-athlete honorees as winning the Bob Broeg Top Ten Award. And at Cooperstown, I received the national BBWAA’s award in the Hall of Fame writers’ wing.”19

Broeg was approachable and accommodating. When Charles Alexander was writing his book on Rogers Hornsby, he set up an interview with Broeg. When the time came, Broeg was in the hospital but still agreed to do the interview.20 He was always happy to talk to anyone about sports at any time and was never condescending to anyone.

During the last two years of Broeg’s life, he suffered from strokes that affected his vision and made it more difficult for him to get around. However, various people helped drive him to events and made sure he could still attend all the important events. True to form, he never retired, and with his last column published in the Post-Dispatch on June 20, 2004, reminisced about talking sports with President Ronald Reagan in 1986 at a White House luncheon. He died from infirmities on October 28, 2005, survived by Lynette and stepchildren Greg and Lisa, along with his brother Fred and his nieces and nephews. His Catholic mass and burial service, heavily attended by so many of his colleagues and the people he covered, including Stan Musial, was on November 3, 2005. He is interred in the Sunset Memorial Park and Mausoleum in Affton, Missouri.

There were many tributes to the man by the people that he covered. Here is a small sampling:

• “His laughter ran from the tip of his toes through his entire body.” — Joe Garagiola
• “When I think about Broeg, I smile, because he was very honest and knew his stuff and would stand up for his writing.” — Tim McCarver
• “Of all the people, Bob Broeg and Gene Autry loved baseball more than anyone else.” — Whitey Herzog
• “The distinguishing thing about him was his quality of eternal boyishness.” — Bob Costas
• “He traveled with us for 25 years, and he was a great personal friend, and a great writer.” — Stan Musial21
• “You know what I’d like more than a couple of hours talking baseball with Bob Broeg? A couple of days!” — Ted Williams
• “Bob Broeg is the finest, fairest journalist I ever met.” — Don Faurot
• “Broeg has the memory of a 2000-year-old man. The sports stories are great. His life story is even better.” — Jack Buck22

To Broeg words meant things and the meanings were important. His obituary noted, “…[his] writing style was once described as so thickly layered with anecdotes and names and finite details that at times it’s like trying to take notes from someone reciting personal experiences on the scale of ‘War and Peace.’”23 The reason he used such descriptive language was because he was trying to describe exactly what he meant and tell a good story along the way. Even his epitaph needed extra description. He long noted it should be: “He was fair, as in just, not as in mediocre.”

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Joe DeSantis and Norman Macht, and fact-checked by Warren Corbett.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also accessed Ancestry.com, and Newspapers.com. Additionally, the author posthumously thanks Bob Broeg himself for all those memories made at SABR Bob Broeg Chapter monthly meetings.

Notes

1 Bob Broeg, Memories of a Hall of Fame Sportswriter, (Champaign, Illinois: Sagamore Publishing, 1995), 1

2 Ibid, 33

3 Ibid, 34

4 Ibid, 54

5 Ibid, 54

6 1936 Cleveland High School Yearbook, 125

7 Bob Broeg, Memories of a Hall of Fame Sportswriter, (Champaign, Illinois: Sagamore Publishing, 1995), 105

8 Bob Broeg, author’s recollections during SABR chapter meetings, ~2000

9 Bob Broeg, Memories of a Hall of Fame Sportswriter, (Champaign, Illinois: Sagamore Publishing, 1995), 280

10 Jerry Vickory, Phone Conversation w/Author, March 8, 2019

11 Ibid

12 Rick Hummel, Phone Conversation w/Author, April 3, 2019

13 Ibid

14 Kevan Horrigan, “Bow Ties, Commas, Redbirds, and Tigers,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1D

15 Bob Broeg, Memories of a Hall of Fame Sportswriter, (Champaign, Illinois: Sagamore Publishing, 1995), 13

16 Jerry Vickory, Phone Conversation w/Author, March 8, 2019

17 Barbara Sheinbein, Email to Author, February 13, 2019

18 Rick Hummel, Phone Conversation w/Author, April 3, 2019

19 Bob Broeg, Memories of a Hall of Fame Sportswriter, (Champaign, Illinois: Sagamore Publishing, 1995), 375

20 Steve Gietschier, Phone Conversation w/Author, February 27, 2019

21 John M. McGuire, “Hall of Fame Sportswriter Bob Broeg Dies,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 29, 2005, B5

22 Bob Broeg, Memories of a Hall of Fame Sportswriter, (Champaign, Illinois: Sagamore Publishing, 1995), Dust Jacket

23 John M. McGuire, “Hall of Fame Sportswriter Bob Broeg Dies,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 29, 2005, B5