Former Inquirer columnist Claire Smith wins Red Smith sports journalism award

The pioneering journalist has been recognized for her work over the years, including a long stint at the Inquirer.

Claire Smith became the first female in 1983 to become a Major League Baseball beat writer covering the New York Yankees for the Hartford Courant. She later became a columnist for the New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer.Read moreCHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer

Published Apr. 6, 2023, 5:53 p.m. ET

Former Inquirer columnist Claire Smith has won the Red Smith Award, which is considered the highest sports journalism honor in the United States.

Smith is the first Black woman to win the award, which is given by the Associated Press Sports Editors. She’s the sixth woman and fourth Black journalist to win the award.

The Langhorne native and Temple alumna, who currently is an assistant professor in the Klein School of Media and Communications, was the first woman to cover a Major League Baseball team full-time when she covered the Yankees for the Hartford Courant beginning in 1982. In 1990, she became the first national baseball columnist at the New York Times, a position she held for eight years.

”There always has to be a first before you hand the baton, and when I see how many women are taking on the task of being great sports writers and editors, women of color, and Latin American women … it’s just heartening,” Smith said in a news release. “I’m just so proud to be in their company. To be recognized and be in such great company … I certainly know I won’t be the last.

“We know there’s no crying in baseball, but there’s crying in my car today.”

Smith, a two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee whose career began at the Bucks County Courier Times before she moved on to Philadelphia Bulletin, was a columnist and assistant sports editor at The Inquirer from 1998-2007. She then moved on to ESPN, where she worked as a coordinating editor until 2021.

Other major awards won by Smith include the BBWAA Career Excellence Award, which is presented annually at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, in 2017. She was the first woman to win the award and the second to be honored individually by the Hall of Fame.