LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — The late Furman Bisher, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist for 59 years, finished second behind Roger Angell in balloting for the 2014 J.G. Taylor Spink Award for meritous contributions to baseball writing.
Results were announced Monday by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America during the annual Winter Meetings at Disney World’s Dolphin and Swan resort.
Angell, 93, will be presented the award July 26 during the National Baseball Hall of Fame induction weekend at Cooperstown, N.Y., and his name will join those of previous award winners in a special exhibit honoring baseball writers and broadcasters.
Bisher was a Southern institution and didn’t stop writing his regular AJC column until one month before his 91st birthday. He died from a heart attack in 2012 at age 93.
Angell, an essayist and author known for his lyrical baseball essays in The New Yorker, is the first winner of the award never to have been a BBWAA member. He received 258 votes to Bisher’s 115, and retired Los Angeles columnist Mel Durslag was third with 74 votes.
