Talk:Wendell Smith (sportswriter)

Hall of Fame
"In 1993, he was a posthumous recipient of the J. G. Taylor Spink Award for excellence in journalism. In 1994 Smith was inducted into The Baseball Hall of Fame." I can't find any listing of Mr. Smith being inducted, not from the National Baseball Hall of Fame online site, nor from BaseballReference.com, even where these lists include umpires, executives and the special Negro League selections.

There is a common misconception that the reception of a J. G. Taylor Spink Award enters one into some "Writer's Wing" of the Hall of Fame. As confirmed by the Wikipedia article, Spink winners are permanently recognized in an exhibit at the Hall's library, but are not considered to be members of the Hall. The Award has been presented annually since 1962 with no repeat recognition, hence more than fifty honorees are involved.

The latter part of this statement should be eliminated or at least modified. WHPratt (talk) 13:02, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Actually, a search here for "writers' wing" will reveal about 17 more such incorrect uses of this concept. I'd suggest that we need a strategy and approved alternate wording for cleaning these up. WHPratt (talk) 13:27, 8 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Current text is an improvement. Smith has a well-deserved "Award-Formerly-Known-as-Spink's," [should update that] with no mention of fictitious "Writer's Wing." WHPratt (talk) 05:02, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Technical and Professional Communication
— Assignment last updated by Savmanbanans (talk) 17:29, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Grammar
Hi guys, this article looks real great so far. However, I do have some possible suggestions. I think I'm going to make some general edits to some grammatical errors within the text. Laurenen2004 (talk) 18:35, 9 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I finished up doing some edits to the grammatical errors inside the text. I think the article is shaping up pretty nicely, but I think going forward I'd like to see an addition to the honors that Smith received. Most of the honors he received were after his career was over; after major sports organizations began to recognize contributions that people of color made to the field. Laurenen2004 (talk) 05:04, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Additional Information About What I Added to the WGN Section and What it Caused
Hello fellow talk page users, I added some additional information to the WGN sports news section of the article. I added more information regarding how Smith used his connections at WGN to help Robinson get connected to the Red Sox team, I think a big part of Smith's contributions that are overlooked is how he worked tirelessly for 30+ years to push for the integration of sports; and his breakthrough with Robinson was the highlight of a long career. Please let me know if you have further questions, I think the additional information was most important because it's imperative to acknowledge that much of Smith's accomplishments after his career as over were recognized because the sports career scene had become more progressive and better at acknowledging people of color's contributions to the field. Please let me know if anyone has additional information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laurenen2004 (talk • contribs) 18:41, 16 November 2023 (UTC)