Claire Smith has been selected to receive the Sam Lacy Legacy Award by the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and MLB.com, the Association for Women in Sports Media has announced.
She will receive the award, which is given to the baseball writer of the year, on Jan. 30 at the Kansas City Convention Center.
Smith, AWSM’s 2000 Mary Garber Pioneer Award winner, has written about baseball for more than two decades. Her career started at the Philadelphia Bulletin before she moved to the Hartford Courant, the New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She helped pen "Don Baylor: Nothing But The Truth, a Baseball Life," and she was also invited by former Major League Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent to be part of a groundbreaking oral history project that benefited the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Since 2007, Smith has worked at ESPN as a news editor, working with the production teams during MLB game broadcasts.
"Claire has long been a pioneer for women in sports journalism, and her career in baseball is second to none," AWSM president Jenni Carlson said. "We are so excited for Claire to receive the Lacy Award. She is most deserving."
