James Isaminger

James Isaminger
Born(1880-12-06)December 6, 1880
Hamilton, Ohio, U.S.
DiedJune 17, 1946(1946-06-17) (aged 65)
Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania, U.S.
OccupationSportswriter
Years active1895–1940
Known forBaseball writing
SpouseElla
Awards J. G. Taylor Spink Award (1974)

James Campbell Isaminger (December 6, 1880 – June 17, 1946) was an American sportswriter who worked for newspapers in Philadelphia from 1905 to 1940 and covered every World Series during that period.

Biography

Isaminger was born in Hamilton, Ohio, and worked for the Cincinnati Times-Star from 1895 to 1905. He subsequently worked for the Philadelphia North American before joining The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1925. Isaminger, along with Hugh Fullerton and Ring Lardner, played a major role in reporting the Black Sox scandal in 1919. In 1934, he was elected president of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA).

In September 1940, Isaminger suffered a stroke while attending a baseball game at Municipal Stadium in Cleveland. He subsequently retired.

Isaminger died in June 1946 at his home in Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania. In 1974, he was posthumously honored by the BBWAA with the J. G. Taylor Spink Award for distinguished baseball writing.

Scorebook collection and historical preservation

In addition to his newspaper reporting, Isaminger kept an extensive series of baseball scorebooks. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Archives holds the James C. Isaminger Scorebook collection (BA MSS 169), consisting of 52 scorebooks dating from 1907 through 1940. The books document spring-training, regular-season and World Series games.

In 2014, David W. Smith, founder of Retrosheet, photographed games from Isaminger's scorebooks at the Hall of Fame as part of an effort to preserve historical play-by-play accounts. Over four days Smith copied 3,588 game accounts, of which 1,003 had not previously been obtained by Retrosheet. The material largely documents home games involving Philadelphia's major-league teams from 1907 through 1939.

Notes

  1. ↑ Initial news reports of Isaminger's death stated that he died "at his Maryland estate"—Fawn Grove is on the border of Maryland.

References

  1. 1 2 "Draft Registration Card". Selective Service System. April 1942. Retrieved March 1, 2021 – via fold3.com.
  2. 1 2 "Jimmy Isaminger Dead". Daily American. Somerset, Pennsylvania. AP. June 18, 1946. p. 1. Retrieved March 1, 2021 – via newspapers.com.
  3. 1 2 "Death Takes Isaminger". Reading Eagle. June 18, 1946.
  4. 1 2 3 "1974 J. G. Taylor Spink Award Winner James Isaminger". National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Archived from the original on 2010-09-18. Retrieved 2010-06-27.
  5. ↑ "ISAMINGER IS ELECTED: Named President of the Baseball Writers Association" (PDF). The New York Times. October 7, 1934.
  6. ↑ "Writers Pay Tribute To Connie Mack, 78" (PDF). The New York Times. December 24, 1940.
  7. ↑ "Isaminger (death notice)". York Daily Record. York, Pennsylvania. June 18, 1946. p. 25. Retrieved March 1, 2021 – via newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ Jim Odenkirk (July 23, 2009). "Henry P. Edwards: Making a Case for His Induction into J.G. Taylor Spink's Writers Wing of the Hall". SABR. Archived from the original on September 29, 2011.
  9. ↑ "James C. Isaminger Scorebook collection". National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Archives. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  10. ↑ Wigley, Jay (2026). How Retrosheet Saved Baseball History. pp. 143–144. ISBN 979-8-2520-5573-2.