The BBWAA Career Excellence Award, formerly the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, is the highest award given by the

Baseball Writers' Association of America The Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) is a professional association for journalists writing about Major League Baseball for daily newspapers, magazines and qualifying websites. The organization was founded in 1908, and is known ...

(BBWAA). It is given "for meritorious contributions to baseball writing" and voted on annually by the BBWAA. Winners are typically announced in December, with the award presented during induction festivities of the Baseball Hall of Fame in July. Winners are not considered to be members of the Hall; they are not "inducted" or "enshrined", but are permanently recognized in an exhibit at the Hall's library. The award was instituted in 1962 and named after J. G. Taylor Spink, publisher of ''

The Sporting News The ''Sporting News'' is a website and former magazine publication owned by Sporting News Holdings, which is a U.S.-based sports media company formed in December 2020 by a private investor consortium. It was originally established in 1886 as a pr ...

'' from 1914 to 1962, and the award's first recipient. In February 2021, the BBWAA voted to remove his name from the award "due to Spink’s troubled history in supporting segregated baseball."

Eligibility

The honoree does not have to be a member of the

(BBWAA), but every recipient from the award's 1962 inception through 2013 had been a BBWAA member at some time. The first recipient who had never been a BBWAA member was recipient

Roger Angell Roger Angell (September 19, 1920 – May 20, 2022) was an American essayist known for his writing on sports, especially baseball. The only writer ever elected into both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Baseball Writers' Associa ...

. Despite having written on baseball for more than a half-century, Angell never worked a specific baseball writing beat, thereby making him ineligible for BBWAA membership.

Veterans Committee role

For several years in the early 2000s, honorees became life members of the

Veterans Committee The Veterans Committee is the popular name of various committees of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum that elect participants other than recently retired players. Originally, it referenced the National Baseball Hall of Fame Committee ...

, which elects players whose eligibility for BBWAA consideration has ended, and is also the sole body that elects non-players for induction into the Hall. Starting with elections for induction in , voting on the main Veterans Committee, which then selected only players whose careers began in 1943 or later, was restricted to Hall of Fame members. After further changes announced for the and elections, BBWAA Career Excellence Award winners are eligible to serve on all of the era-based voting bodies that succeeded the Veterans Committee (and are still colloquially referred to as such).

Recipients

Through 2006, the BBWAA designated honorees based on the ''announcement'' year (typically in December). In the below table, winners through 2006 are listed with both their announcement year, and their induction ''ceremony'' year (the ensuing summer). In 2007, the BBWAA changed the year designation for the award to coincide with the induction ceremony. Thus, while the official BBWAA year designations jump from 2006 to 2008, the award has been bestowed annually since inception, except for one year missed due to the

1994–95 Major League Baseball strike The 1994–95 Major League Baseball strike was the eighth and longest work stoppage in baseball history, as well as the fourth in-season work stoppage in 22 years. The strike began on August 12, 1994, and resulted in the remainder of that seaso ...

. From 1972 through 1981, there were multiple honorees each year. This again occurred in 1988 and 1992. Since that time, there has been a single winner each year. Through 2010, the award was presented during the actual induction ceremony; since then, it has been presented at the Hall of Fame awards presentation, held the day before the induction ceremony. In recent years, the Hall of Fame has announced the finalists for the award and final vote totals. Previously, such detail was not made public, with only the winner announced. Ring Lardner LC-DIG-npcc-03879

Notes

This award should not be confused with the

Topps Minor League Player of the Year Award The Topps Minor League Player of the Year Award was presented by Topps, The Topps Company in conjunction with Minor League Baseball to a minor-league player deemed to have had the most outstanding season. It was awarded annually beginning in 1960, ...

, which was also known as the "J. G. Taylor Spink Award".

References

External links