Tom Gage (born April 2, 1948) is an American sportswriter who worked for ''

The Detroit News ''The Detroit News'' is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival ''Detroit Free Press'' building. ''The News'' absorbed the '' Detroit Tribune'' on Februa ...

'' as the

Detroit Tigers The Detroit Tigers are an American professional baseball team based in Detroit. The Tigers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the American League (AL) Central division. One of the AL's eight charter franchises, the club was f ...

beat writer from 1979 to 2015. Gage was awarded the

J. G. Taylor Spink Award The BBWAA Career Excellence Award, formerly the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, is the highest award given by the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA). It is given "for meritorious contributions to baseball writing" and voted on annually by ...

in 2015.

Career

Gage began his career at '' The Times-Picayune'' in the early 1970s before moving to ''The Detroit News'' in 1976. Gage spent 39 years on the ''News'' sports staff, and 36 years as the Tigers beat writer, until retiring from the paper in March 2015, after being reassigned from the beat a month prior. Following his retirement from ''The Detroit News'' in March 2015, it was announced that Gage was hired as a columnist for

Fox Sports Detroit Bally Sports Detroit (BSD) is an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group that operates as a Bally Sports affiliate. It provides coverage of local sports teams in the state of Michigan, primarily focusing on those in Metro D ...

, where he began writing commentary and analysis of the Tigers from their spring training complex. His job at Fox Sports Detroit only lasted three months, when Fox Sports dismissed all of their regional web sportswriters on June 30, 2015. Gage was awarded the

in 2015 by Baseball Writers' Association of America, in the closest balloting in the history of the award. Gage received 167 votes of the record 463 ballots cast, while late columnist

Furman Bisher James Furman Bisher (November 4, 1918 – March 18, 2012) was a newspaper sports writer and columnist for ''The Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' in Atlanta, Georgia. North Carolina beginnings Bisher was born in Denton, North Carolina.Associa ...

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ''The Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the only major daily newspaper in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. It is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the result of the merger between ...

received 161 votes. On June 13, 2016, Gage was honored by the Michigan Jewish Sports Foundation with the Dick Schaap Award for Media Excellence at its 26th Annual Hank Greenberg Memorial Golf Invitational. On September 9, 2016, Gage was inducted into the

Michigan Sports Hall of Fame The Michigan Sports Hall of Fame is a Hall of Fame to honor Michigan sports athletes, coaches and contributors. It was organized in 1954 by Michigan Lieutenant Governor Philip Hart, Michigan State University athletic director Biggie Munn, presid ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

, Michigan. Gage is a graduate of

Washington & Lee University Washington and Lee University (Washington and Lee or W&L) is a private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts university in Lexington, Virginia. Established in 1749 as the Augusta Academy, the university is among the Colonial col ...

References

External links

Baseball Hall of FameDetroit News
Living people 1948 births 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers Baseball writers BBWAA Career Excellence Award recipients Sportswriters from Michigan The Detroit News people Writers from Detroit 20th-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers 21st-century American male writers {{US-journalist-1940s-stub