For Immediate Release
April 20, 2011
Contact Information

NABJ
Aprill Turner
646-244-4917
aprill@aprilloturner.com

(BPRW) Black Journalists Group Honors Pioneering Sports Journalist, ESPN's Claire Smith with Annual Legacy Award

(BLACK PR WIRE)--WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) announced at its spring Board of Directors meeting that pioneering sports journalist Claire Smith will receive its Legacy Award. Smith will be recognized at the association’s 36th Annual Convention and Career Fair in Philadelphia, PA, the largest annual gathering of minority journalists in the country. The award will be bestowed Saturday, Aug. 6, 2011.

A member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, Smith has written about sports for over 25 years, for the Philadelphia Bulletin, Hartford Courant, New York Times, and Philadelphia Inquirer. For over 20 years, her beat was Major League Baseball. In July 2007, she started in a new direction and new industry when she joined ESPN as a news editor, working with the production teams on MLB game broadcasts. She is the author "Don Baylor: Nothing But The Truth, a Baseball Life," an autobiography of a great baseball man. Also of tremendous importance to Smith was former commissioner Fay Vincent's invitation to participate in a groundbreaking oral history project to benefit the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown.

“Claire Smith is one of our best and brightest, a true trailblazer befitting of our annual Legacy Award, one of our organizations highest honors,” said NABJ President Kathy Y. Times. “Claire has been a pioneer for women in sports journalism, and her career in baseball is second to none. She is most deserving.”

Smith often refers to her defining moment, which came in the 1984 National League Championship Series between the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres. She was physically removed by players from the Padres clubhouse after Game One. While the situation was eventually resolved, thanks to Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, it left scars for a number of years.

This year Smith will join other top honorees, including Miami Herald’s Jacqueline Charles for Journalist of the Year, at NABJ’s Annual Awards Gala. The Salute to Excellence Awards Gala recognizes journalism that best covered the black experience or addressed issues affecting the worldwide black community during 2010.

NABJ's 36th Annual Convention and Career Fair will take place August 3-7, 2011 in Philadelphia, PA. For additional information, ticket sales, and registration, please visit us at www.nabj.org.