Stanley Woodward
Stanley Woodward was an influential American sports journalist born in 1895 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Despite facing significant visual impairments, including cataracts that required multiple surgeries, he excelled as a baseball pitcher and later pursued a career in journalism. After serving in the Merchant Marine during World War I, Woodward began his journalistic journey at the Worcester Evening Gazette and progressed to notable roles at the Boston Herald and the New York Herald Tribune. He was particularly recognized for his coverage of iconic baseball figures, including the Brooklyn Dodgers and Joe DiMaggio.
Woodward’s tenure as sports editor at the Herald Tribune marked a transformative period in sports journalism, emphasizing literary quality and journalistic integrity. He is remembered for his commitment to responsible reporting, notably during a time when sports were deeply intertwined with societal issues, such as his revelation about the St. Louis Cardinals’ planned boycott against Jackie Robinson. Despite facing challenges, including disputes over editorial independence, Woodward's legacy lies in his advocacy for clarity and simplicity in sportswriting. He passed away in 1965 but left a lasting impact on the profession, raising the standards of American sports journalism.
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Subject Terms
Stanley Woodward
Writer
- Born: June 5, 1895
- Birthplace: Worcester, Massachusetts
- Died: November 29, 1965
- Place of death: White Plains, New York
Biography
Rufus Stanley Woodward was born in 1895 in Worcester, Massachusetts. His father instilled in him a love of baseball, and although Woodward suffered from poor eyesight, he was able to be a baseball pitcher. He was diagnosed with cataracts and first operated on in 1912, eventually undergoing nine operations. When he attended Amherst College, he was virtually blind when he played on the football line until a helmet was devised that enabled him to wear glasses. After graduating in 1917, he served in the Merchant Marine during World War I, the only service that would accept him.
Woodward began his journalistic career at the Worcester Evening Gazette in 1919 and also pitched in a semiprofessional baseball team. In 1922 he became a copyreader at the Boston Herald, eventually moving on to sportswriting and city reporting. Based on his experiences, he believed that sportswriters should begin their careers as general reporters and then become sportswriters. During this time he married his landlady; they divorced soon after he moved to New York in 1930 for a job on the New York Herald Tribune.
While at the Herald Tribune, he covered the Brooklyn Dodgers, who at that time were managed by Casey Stengel, and the debut of Joe DiMaggio with the New York Yankees. He also married Esther Ricie, and they had two daughters, Ellen and Mary. In 1938 he became the sports editor of the Herald Tribune, bringing to the sports section a level of literacy unsurpassed in American journalism. He also purchased and assiduously worked on a dairy farm in New Jersey.
During World War II, Woodward believed that sports had become less important and he become a war correspondent, covering battles in the Netherlands and the Pacific. On his return to the United States, he made what many people considered his wisest decision by hiring Philadelphia sportswriter Red Smith to work at the Herald Tribune. Smith soon would be recognized as the finest sports columnist in America. Woodward’s biggest scoop was the revelation that the St. Louis Cardinals in 1947 planned to boycott games against the Brooklyn Dodgers to protest the Dodgers’ decision to hire Jackie Robinson, an African American player.
After the death of the Herald Tribune’s president, Ogden Reid, Woodward was fired in 1948 after a dispute with Reid’s wife over journalistic independence. He worked on a new magazine, Sports Illustrated, which folded after four issues; produced a football annual from 1948 through 1961; worked for a year on The Compass, a radical New York newspaper; and worked for the Miami News for two-and-a-half years and then for the Newark Star Ledger for four years. When the Reids sold the Herald Tribune, Woodward returned to that newspaper in 1959 in self-vindication, but left again in 1962 in another dispute over freedom of expression.
Woodward died from lung disease in 1965 in White Plains, New York. He raised the level of American sportswriting to its literate height before television brought its deflation. He refused to encourage the adulation of athletes, which he called “godding up.” He fought for clarity, simplicity, and independence in reporting, which he more modestly described as trying “to write English.”