Bill Madden (born 1946) is an American

sportswriter Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on matters pertaining to sporting topics and competitions. Sports journalism started in the early 1800s when it was targeted to the social elite and transitioned into an integral part of the n ...

formerly with the ''

New York Daily News The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ta ...

''. A member of 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 fo ...

, he has served on the Historical Overview Committee of the

Baseball Hall of Fame The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-r ...

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

and

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, helping to select candidates for the final ballots presented to 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 ...

. Madden grew up in

Oradell, New Jersey Oradell is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the borough's population was 8,244,, an increase of 266 from the 2010 United States census, 2 ...

, and graduated from

Bergen Catholic High School Bergen Catholic High School is an all-male Roman Catholic high school in Oradell, Bergen County, New Jersey, United States, serving students in ninth through twelfth grade. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Coll ...

. Madden was a sportswriter with

United Press International United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ...

for nine years before he joined the ''Daily News'' in 1978. He covered the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...

before becoming a columnist in 1989. In 1990, he crossed picket lines while the ''Daily News'' writers were on strike. He has written the books ''Damned Yankees: A No-Holds-Barred Account of Life With "Boss" Steinbrenner'' (1991, with

Moss Klein Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and ho ...

), ''Zim - A Baseball Life'' (2001, with

Don Zimmer Donald William Zimmer (January 17, 1931 – June 4, 2014) was an American infielder, manager, and coach in Major League Baseball (MLB). Zimmer was involved in professional baseball from 1949 until his death, a span of 65 years, across 8 d ...

), ''Pride of October: What it Was to Be Young and a Yankee'' (2003), and ''Bill Madden: My 25 Years Covering Baseball's Heroes, Scoundrels, Triumphs and Tragedies'' 2004 ''Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball'' (2010), "1954 - The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Baseball Forever" (2014), and "Lou - -Fifty Years of Kicking Dirt, Playing Hard and Winning in the Sweet Spot of Baseball" (with Lou Piniella) (2017). In 2010, Madden was the recipient of the baseball scribe's highest honor, the J.G. Taylor Spink Award. Madden and other Spink award winners are recognized at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown with a display in the "Scribes and Mikemen" exhibit behind the Gallery of Plaques. On September 16, 2015, Madden was laid off from the ''Daily News'' by publisher

Mort Zuckerman Mortimer Benjamin Zuckerman (born June 4, 1937) is a Canadian-American billionaire media proprietor, magazine editor, and investor. He is the co-founder, executive chairman and former CEO of Boston Properties, one of the largest real estate inves ...

in a cost-cutting effort that included other longtime, well-known columnists. However, two years later, Madden was brought back on a freelance basis and continues to write several columns a week. In 2016 and 2017, Madden interviewed

Tom Seaver George Thomas Seaver (November 17, 1944 – August 31, 2020), nicknamed "Tom Terrific" and "the Franchise", was an American professional baseball pitcher who played 20 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). He played for the New York Mets, Cinc ...

in Seaver's winery for a documentary to be aired in 2019, when Seaver was already battling the effects of lyme disease which mimicked the memory loss symptoms of dementia or Alzheimer's disease. When Seaver died in 2020, Madden wrote ''Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life'' in honor of him.

References

External links

Baseball Hall of FameMadden's Daily Columns
1946 births Living people Bergen Catholic High School alumni BBWAA Career Excellence Award recipients Journalists from New York City Sportswriters from New York (state) People from Oradell, New Jersey {{US-journalist-1940s-stub