Background

Arthur John Daley was born on July 31, 1904, in New York City, New york, United States. He was one of two children born to Daniel M. Daley, a sales executive, and Mary Greene.

Education

Daley attended Fordham Preparatory School, and in 1922 he entered Fordham University, where he participated in baseball, basketball, football, track, and swimming. After breaking his left arm in a football pileup, he joined the student newspaper and eventually became its sports editor. He graduated in 1926.

Career

Inn 1926, Daley joined the New York Times as a sports reporter. One year later he reported on the heavyweight boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney. In 1932 he was sent to Los Angeles for his first Olympic games, and four years later he covered the games in Berlin.

In 1942, he succeeded John Kieran in producing the daily column "Sports of the Times. " He wrote thousands of columns on all sports, but baseball remained his favorite. Daley's writing was characterized by fairness, intelligence, and wit; he soon became one of the most noted and quoted columnists in the United States.

One of Arthur Daley's columns concerned a talented baseball player's betrayal of his principles and was turned into a book, The Natural, by Bernard Malamud. Daley himself authored and coauthored several books, including Times at Bat: A Half Century of Baseball (1950), considered at the time of its publication "the most comprehensive book on baseball ever published. " He collaborated with his New York Times colleague, John Kieran, on The Story of the Olympic Games, an authoritative history of the games from the first Olympiad held in Greece in 776 B. C. through modern times.

Beginning in 1969, he served on the board of directors of the Pro Football Writers Association. Daley never retired, and he died while on his way to the office to write his column.

Achievements

• Daley was the recipient of the Grantland Rice award in 1961; the Sportswriter of the Year award in 1963; and the Professional Football Writers' Distinguished Writing award in 1970. On May 8, 1956, he won the Pulitzer prize "for local reporting under conditions not usually subject to a deadline. " The awarding of this prize to a sports reporter was very rare. The columns cited by the Pulitzer committee were on boxing, baseball, horse racing, and track. The National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association added him to its Hall of Fame in 1976. In 1972 he was inducted into the Fordham University Athletic Hall of Fame.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Pageantry of Sport from the Age of Chivalry to the Age of Victoria

    (Playing fields and players the world over, from the age o...)

  • The Story of the Olympic Games
  • The Story of the Olympic Games 776 B.C. - 1960 A.D. revised edition
  • Reinventing Yourself and Your

Personality

Daley was a modest and diffident man who won the respect and confidence of those he covered.

Quotes from others about the person

• Joe DiMaggio: "I knew I could trust him from the first day I met him. "

Connections

Daley married Betty Blake on November 28, 1928. Their home was in suburban Greenwich, Connecticut, and they had four children.

Father:

Daniel M. Daley

Mother:

Mary Greene

Spouse:

Betty Blake

child:

Katharine Daley

child:

Patricia Daley

child:

Kevin Daley

child:

Robert Daley

colleague:

John Kieran

References

• Arthur Daley's Guide to Doing It Right