Peter Gilray Schmuck (born September 8, 1955, in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

) is a retired American sportswriter. Schmuck was a reporter for the '' Orange County Register'' and later a reporter and

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, ...

columnist for ''

The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by T ...

'' before retiring in 2020. Named Maryland Sportswriter of the Year seven times by the

National Sports Media Association The National Sports Media Association (NSMA), formerly the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, is an organization of sports media members in the United States, and constitutes the American chapter of the International Sports P ...

, he primarily wrote about

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

and hosted a weekend

talk show A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Sh ...

on WBAL AM 1090. For several years, he wrote a popular blog entitled "The Schmuck Stops Here" on the ''Baltimore Sun'' web site. He still writes columns for the website BaltimoreBaseball.com on an occasional basis. A graduate of

Cal State Fullerton California State University, Fullerton (CSUF or Cal State Fullerton) is a public university in Fullerton, California. With a total enrollment of more than 41,000, it has the largest student body of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) ...

, Schmuck first came to national attention in 1980 when the California Department of Motor Vehicles denied his request for a personalized license plate bearing his last name, claiming it was "obscene and offensive to public decency." The incident led to an appearance with comedian Buddy Hackett on an episode of the syndicated re-make of the game show ''You Bet Your Life''. During a sports writing career that spanned 43 years, Schmuck covered the Los Angeles Dodgers, California Angels and Baltimore Orioles as a beat writer before becoming the Baltimore Sun's national baseball reporter in 1994. He became that paper's general sports columnist in 2004 and remained in that role until retiring. He also served as a freelance columnist for The Sporting News during the 1990s and wrote for numerous sports magazines and baseball annuals. In addition to his writing career, he served as a television baseball analyst for the FOX affiliate in Baltimore and spent two decades as a sports and political talk show host on WBAL Radio. He also appeared in five episodes of the MLB Network's ''Prime 9'' and three episodes (Cal Ripken, Albert Belle and Ball Four) of ESPN's ''SportsCentury''. Schmuck was elected president 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 ...

in 2005.Schmuck becomes BBWAA president

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

, October 27, 2005. Accessed 2011-03-05.

References

External links

Peter Schmuck
at ''

'' 1955 births Living people Sportswriters from California American reporters and correspondents The Baltimore Sun people 20th-century American journalists American male journalists California State University, Fullerton alumni {{US-journalist-1950s-stub