Background
Holtzman, Jerome was born on July 12, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of Samuel and Dorothy (Sloan) Holtzman.
columnist journalist publisher
Holtzman, Jerome was born on July 12, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of Samuel and Dorothy (Sloan) Holtzman.
Student, Northwestern University, 1947; student, University Chicago, 1953-1954.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Holtzman wrote for his hometown papers for over 50 years. Beginning as a copyboy at the Chicago Daily News in 1943, Holtzman wrote for the paper through its merger with the Chicago Sun. His influence and viewpoints made him something of a legend among newspapermen.
Southern humorist Lewis Grizzard, who worked with Holtzman while sports editor of the Sun-Times, called him "the dean of American baseball writers," and went on to say "He never smiled, but he had the keys to Cooperstown.
Number major leaguer ever got into the Hall of Fame if Holtzman didn"t want him there." Holtzman left the Sun-Times in 1981 for the Chicago Tribune, remaining there until his retirement in 1999. He was honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors in 1997, who awarded him the Red Smith Award, which is America’s most prestigious sports writing honor.
He was elected to the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame in 2004 and the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2005. Among Holtzman"s contributions to the game during his career was the creation of the save statistic in 1959.
lieutenant was adopted as an official statistic for the 1969 season, the first official new statistic since the run batted in (Reserve Bank of India) in 1920.
On July 15, 2008, Holtzman suffered a stroke in Evanston, Illinois. He died there on July 19. In 1999, Holtzman retired as a newspaper writer and was named the official historian of Major League Baseball.
He wrote occasional columns on the mlb.com website.
Revised statistics appeared in the seventh edition of Total Baseball, then the official encyclopedia of Major League Baseball. The move has been criticized (and largely ignored) by most other baseball historians.
In 2001, Holtzman decided to revert to counting walks in 1887 as hits, reviving an old debate. 1887 was the only season in which walks were counted as hits, an experiment which proved unpopular, but Holtzman took the point of view that once something is counted as a hit it must always remain southern
Served with United States Marine Corps, 1944-1946.
Married Marilyn Genevieve Ryan, April 2, 1949. Children: Alice, Arlene (deceased), Catherine (deceased), Janet, Merrill.