As a boy Fred Lieb dreamed of being a baseball writer, and his accomplishments exceeded even his dream. His sportswriting career, which began in 1911 and lasted sixty-nine years, was recognized by the Baseball Writers Association of America, and he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1973. During that career Lieb worked at four New York papers and was surrounded by sportswriting legends such as Damon Runyon and Grantland Rice. At their greatest circulation his syndicated columns reached more than one hundred newspapers. He retired from daily reporting in 1934 only to publish eleven books on baseball and to become the top columnist and correspondent of The Sporting News for twenty-four years. Lieb's death deprived his fans of a treasured writer who was still typing at the age of ninety-two.

Frederick George Lieb was born on 5 March 1888 in Philadelphia to George and Teresa Lieb, German immigrants. As a boy...