Fred Lieb
Fred Lieb was a prominent American sportswriter, born in Philadelphia on March 5, 1888, to German immigrant parents. His early love for baseball began as he sold scorecards for the Philadelphia Athletics, and he later pursued his passion through writing. After completing high school in 1905, he worked as a clerk while publishing short mystery stories. By 1909, he started writing biographies of baseball players, gaining recognition for his accurate and accessible style. In 1911, he transitioned to sportswriting, notably covering the New York Yankees during their peak years, and he is credited with coining the famous phrase "the house that Ruth built" regarding Yankee Stadium.
Lieb's straightforward writing style earned him a loyal following among baseball enthusiasts, as he vividly captured the sport's excitement without excessive emotion. During the Great Depression, he shifted to part-time writing for Sporting News, where he continued to cover major baseball events for over two decades. He published several successful books detailing the histories of individual baseball teams, solidifying his reputation as a leading baseball authority. In recognition of his contributions, Lieb received the J. G. Taylor Spink Award and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973. He continued writing until his health declined, ultimately passing away on June 3, 1980.
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Fred Lieb
- Born: March 5, 1888
- Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Died: June 3, 1980
- Place of death: Houston, Texas
Biography
Born in Philadelphia on March 5, 1888, the son of German immigrants, Frederick George Lieb became enamored with baseball when he sold day-after scorecards of the Philadelphia Athletics on street corners. Given a Christmas present of a small working printing press, Lieb was soon printing his own stories. He completed high school in 1905 and then worked as a clerk for a railroad company. At the same time, he published short mystery stories that brought him a modest income.
Lieb never abandoned his love of baseball. In 1909, he began writing a series of short biographies of the game’s most prominent players for a Boston magazine. The series drew widespread appreciation for its accuracy and accessibility. By 1911, Lieb was covering financial news in the Philadelphia bureau of The Wall Street Journal. Determined to write about baseball, he took a job as a sportswriter for the New York Press in 1911. Over the next two decades, Lieb covered the New York Yankees during some of the team’s most successful years, writing daily columns as well as covering the World Series for the Press and other New York City newspapers. In a style praised for its lack of gushy emotionalism, Lieb secured a national following among baseball fans for his ability to vividly capture the color and emotion of the games. His coverage helped shape national perceptions of the legendary Yankees, including team members Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. Lieb is widely credited for dubbing Yankee Stadium “the house that Ruth built.”
During the Depression, Lieb grew dissatisfied by cutbacks in newspaper baseball coverage. He moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1934, accepting an offer to write part-time for the national sports magazine Sporting News. Lieb continued to write for Sporting News for more than twenty years, covering the World Series and the All-Star Game every year. In 1944, Lieb began to publish a series of books, with each volume an anecdotal history of an individual baseball team. Over the next decade, he completed five such volumes, each selling remarkably well, establishing Lieb as a leading baseball authority.
Lieb continued to write, both occasional columns and baseball histories, well into his seventies. In 1972, he was awarded the J. G. Taylor Spink Award for lifetime achievement in sportswriting, and the following year he was inducted into the sportswriters’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. By late 1979, his health began to fail and his daughter placed him in an assisted living facility in Houston, Texas, where he died on June 3, 1980. In his columns and histories, which captured the rhythms and excitement of baseball, he secured a national readership that appreciated his no-nonsense style, low-keyed opinions, sense of the grandeur of competition, and love of the game and its players.