Charles Richards Gordon, known as Dick "Scoop" Gordon (January 15, 1911 – December 8, 2008), was an American

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

whose works were a regular feature in venerable

sports magazine A sports magazine is usually a weekly, biweekly or monthly, magazine featuring articles or segments on sports. Some may be published a specific number of times per year. A wide range of sports are covered by these magazines which include general ...

s like ''

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 ...

'', ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...

'', and ''

Baseball Digest ''Baseball Digest'' is a baseball magazine resource, published in Orlando, Florida by Grandstand Publishing, LLC. It is the longest-running baseball magazine in the United States. History and profile It was created by Herbert F. Simons, a spor ...

''. After earning his nickname "Scoop" in 1930 by reporting for '' The Daily Princetonian'' that golfing legend Bobby Jones would be retiring from active competition, Gordon went on to a sports reporting career which ended in 2008.

Childhood

Charles Richards Gordon grew up in

St. Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center o ...

, the son of Charles William Gordon, the proprietor of the fur clothing manufacturer Gordon & Furguson, Inc. His mother, Charlotte Bishop Gordon, was a native of Connecticut. At the time of the 1920 United States Census, Gordon was living with his parents, an older sister (Virginia), and two servants at 378 Summit Avenue in St. Paul,Census entry for Charles W. Gordon and family. Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census atabase on-line Census Place: St Paul Ward 7, Ramsey, Minnesota; Roll: T625_853; Page: 13A; Enumeration District: 74; Image: 1131. in the home of his grandfather, Richards Gordon, a deacon of the Episcopal Church and a board member of the new "St. Paul Institute" (now the Science Museum of Minnesota). The younger Gordon attended

St. Paul Academy St. Paul Academy and Summit School is a college preparatory independent day school in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, for students in grades K–12. The school was established through a merger in 1969 of St. Paul Academy, a school for boys ...

and wrote for the school newspaper ''Now and Then''. The school's headmaster reportedly opined that Gordon was a better writer than F. Scott Fitzgerald, who had been a student at the St. Paul Academy from 1908 to 1911.

Princeton and early career

Gordon later attended

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, graduating in 1933. While attending Princeton, he was a reporter for '' The Daily Princetonian''. He received the nickname "Scoop" in 1930 for being the first to report that professional golfer Bobby Jones was retiring from the sport. After graduating from Princeton, Gordon returned to Minnesota and became a sports writer for the ''

St. Paul Pioneer Press The ''St. Paul Pioneer Press'' is a newspaper based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. It serves the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. Circulation is heaviest in the east metro, including Ramsey County, Minn ...

''. In January 1939, he joined the ''

Chicago Daily News The ''Chicago Daily News'' was an afternoon daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, published between 1875 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois. History The ''Daily News'' was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty ...

'' as a sports writer.

World War II

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he served in the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

for 26 months. He served as a Marine Combat Correspondent in the Pacific Theater of Operations. In November 1943, his story about a U.S. Army baseball team that endured six months at

Guadalcanal Guadalcanal (; indigenous name: ''Isatabu'') is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of Solomon Islands, located in the south-western Pacific, northeast of Australia. It is the largest island in the Solomon Islands by area, and the seco ...

was published in ''

''. After over two years of combat action, Sergeant Gordon was returned to Minneapolis and worked for a time as a U.S. Marine recruiter. On April 26, 1945, Gordon married Adelaide Washburne, a Smith graduate who had been teaching at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

and worked in the

American Red Cross The American Red Cross (ARC), also known as the American National Red Cross, is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. It is the desi ...

during World War II. After the war ended, Gordon returned to his job as a sports reporter for the ''Chicago Daily News''.

Post-war career

From the late 1940s through the 1970s, Gordon was one of the leading sports writers in the United States. Between 1946 and 1976, almost 250 of Gordon's works were published in ''The Sporting News'', an American-based sports magazine established in 1886. From 1949 to 1970, Gordon's baseball writings were a recurring feature in ''

'', the oldest continuously-published baseball magazine in the United States. When ''

'' magazine launched in the mid-1950s, Gordon was one of the budding journal's first writers. On a daily basis, Gordon worked the sports desk for the ''

Minneapolis Star The ''Star Tribune'' is the largest newspaper in Minnesota. It originated as the ''Minneapolis Tribune'' in 1867 and the competing ''Minneapolis Daily Star'' in 1920. During the 1930s and 1940s, Minneapolis's competing newspapers were consolida ...

'', the '' Minneapolis Star Tribune'', and the '' Villager'' newspapers in the Twin Cities. He wrote articles about the

Minnesota Twins The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central Division. The team is named after the Twin Cities area w ...

baseball team, the

Minnesota Golden Gophers The Minnesota Golden Gophers (commonly shortened to Gophers) are the college sports teams of the University of Minnesota. The university fields a total of 25 (12 men's, 13 women's) teams in both men's and women's sports and competes in the Big Te ...

, and the

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansion ...

. Gordon covered the 1960 Olympics in Squaw Valley, California where the U.S. men's ice hockey team won gold. He continued to write for the ''Villager'' until he retired after a long career in early 2008.

Family and death

Dick Gordon and his wife Adelaide spent 61 years together, their marriage producing three boys. Adelaide died in early 2007, and Gordon followed on December 8, 2008. ''Sports Illustrated'', the ''Star Tribune'' and his college newspaper all reported the passing.

Selected works

As an active sportswriter for almost eighty years, Gordon wrote thousands of articles on subjects ranging from baseball to hockey. The following are a small sampling of his works, listed chronologically:
Charles (The Man) Comiskey II Gets Sox Presidency as 21st Birthday Gift
''The Sporting News'', November 27, 1946
Little Brown Jug Series Good to the Last Drop
''The Sporting News'', October 22, 1947
Big Gopher Ekberg Stars in Studies Too
''The Sporting News'', January 5, 1949
Mickey Owen, Forgotten Man
''Baseball Digest'', February 1949
Four of 13 Survivors of Duluth Bus Crash Playing a Year Later
''The Sporting News'', August 3, 1949
Nomellini's the Monicker of Gophers' Lion of the Line
''The Sporting News'', October 19, 1949
Mariucci by Phone: ‘We Rose to Heights; Russia Too Good’
''Minneapolis Star and Tribune'', January 1956
Why He's Still Stan the Man
''Baseball Digest'', August 1957
Giel's Ready to Wheel
''Baseball Digest'', February 1958
Did Twin Cities Double Deals Selves Out of Big League Ball
''Baseball Digest'', March 1958
The Great Cepeda, Junior
''Baseball Digest'', April 1958
The Hottest Guy in Cold Storage
''Baseball Digest'', February 1959
"Can Jim Gentile Keep a Hot Bat and a Cool Head for Baltimore?"
''Baseball Digest'', March 1960
30-G Minimum Bonus Urged for Campus Raids
''Baseball Digest'', June 1960
Headaches of a Ten-Club Team
''Baseball Digest'', December 1960
Stallard - Made-to-Order Fireman
''Baseball Digest'', January 1961
Challenge from Latin America
''Baseball Digest'', May 1961
Should Power Bunt Winning Run to 3rd?
''Baseball Digest'', December 1961
Minnesota's Double K-Rations
''Baseball Digest'', February 1962
Pascual Finds It Doesn't Pay to Advertise
''Baseball Digest'', March 1962
Where to Play 46 Homers
''Baseball Digest'', April 1962
"The Truth about Donavan"
''Baseball Digest'', July 1962
In Bluege's Footsteps
''Baseball Digest'', September 1962
Why the scarcity of big-name catchers?
''Baseball Digest'', October 1962
Are Superstars a Vanishing Breed?
''Baseball Digest'', February 1963
"How Allen Changed from Minnesota Villan to Star"
''Baseball Digest'', March 1963
Are Own Homers Beating Twins?
''Baseball Digest'', February 1964
The Second Generation Doesn't Take First Honors
''Baseball Digest'', March 1964
"More Frequently than Anyone since Ruth"
''Baseball Digest'', May 1964
Where There's Smokey, There's No Firing
''Baseball Digest'', June 1964
"Appling or Cronin?"
''Baseball Digest'', August 1964
Control Confidence Conscience
''Baseball Digest'', April 1965
"A Breed of New Shortstops"
''Baseball Digest'', September 1965
Those Odd Twins
''Baseball Digest'', October 1965

''Sports Illustrated'', November 1965
Twin Firsts by a Twin
''Baseball Digest'', December 1965
Oliva's Lifetime Mark Best Now
''Baseball Digest'', September 1966
Letter Man at Minnesota
''Baseball Digest'', July 1967
Twins' Lightning Rod
''Baseball Digest'', May 1968
Graig Nettles - Is He a Star of the Future?
''Baseball Digest'', March 1969
"Rosy Ryan Remembers...51 Years of Baseball"
''Baseball Digest'', June 1969
Grant Can't Stand Luxury of Emotions
''The Sporting News'' December 6, 1969
Crosetti Vividly Remembers Glory Years of the Yankees
''Baseball Digest'', September 1970

''Sports Illustrated'', December 1971
The Northern League Baseball Cradle Empty Now
''Baseball Digest'', July 1972
Rookie White's Sizzling Catches Heat Up Vikes
''The Sporting News'', December 4, 1976

''Sports Illustrated'', December 1984

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Dick 1911 births 2008 deaths Baseball writers Sportswriters from Minnesota Golf writers Princeton University alumni St. Paul Pioneer Press people Star Tribune people