1972 BBWAA Career Excellence Award Winner J. Roy Stockton

Long-time baseball writer J. Roy Stockton first entered the world of sports writing when he covered Spring Training for the 1915 St. Louis Federal League baseball club in Cuba.

While in Havana, he also reported on the upset victory of Jess Willard over Jack Johnson. At the age of 25, Stockton hired on at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch where he remained for more than 40 years.

The witty Stockton was author of the baseball classic "The Gas House Gang and a Couple of Other Guys", but his journalistic career was not confined to the written word. For more than 15 years, Stockton hosted a radio sports program and was part of the first telecast of a baseball game in St. Louis in 1947.

In nominating Stockton for Commissioner of Baseball, a position that eventually went to Ford Frick, Red Smith referred to Stockton as "a man of many gifts and fierce integrity, whose years as one of the country's finest baseball writers have given him a rich background of experience and knowledge."

A former president of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, Stockton also served briefly as president of the Florida State League.

Stockton passed away on Aug. 24, 1972.