[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 169 (Thursday, November 20, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2353]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        HONORING JEROME HOLTZMAN

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. HENRY J. HYDE

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, November 19, 2003

  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Jerome Holtzman, who 
on November 20 will receive the prestigious Chicago Athletic 
Association Ring Lardner Award. Jerome Holtzman has forgotten more 
about baseball than most will ever know and he is well deserving of the 
award. Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist Ron Rapoport honored Mr. 
Holtzman in his column on November 11--a column I am pleased to share 
with my colleagues:

            For His Scoops and Saves, Holtzman Awarded Honor

       The major exhibit in Jerome Holtzman's baseball legacy 
     always will be his invention of the save rule, but my 
     favorite story about him is the time he scooped the judge.
       Charlie Finley was suing baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, 
     and Holtzman, who had covered every day of the trial for the 
     Sun-Times, got the word that Finley had lost. Holtzman rushed 
     the story into the last edition of the paper, which so 
     infuriated people at the Tribune, they rousted the judge out 
     of bed after midnight to demand some information.
       ``But I haven't even written the decision yet,'' the judge 
     protested.
       Holtzman, who receives the Chicago Athletic Association's 
     Ring Lardner Award on November 20, and I tried to figure out 
     Monday how many baseball games he has covered in his life. 
     The best we could come up with was about 200 a year for 28 
     years and maybe 100 a year for the decade after that. So how 
     many is that--7,000 or 8,000? A lot, anyway.
       ``We never had any days off,'' said Holtzman, who joined 
     the old Chicago Times as a copy boy in 1943, before it merged 
     with the Sun. ``Maybe if I didn't go to the All-Star Game, 
     I'd have a two- or three-day break, but otherwise it was 
     every game from spring training to the World Series.''
       Holtzman was more than just a sportswriter, though. He 
     became our trade's historian, with his classic book ``No 
     Cheering in the Press Box'' and his beautifully bound 
     reprints of sports books, such as ``Eight Men Out, The Boys 
     of Summer and Babe.''
       When Holtzman invented the save rule, he received a bonus 
     of $100 or $200 from The Sporting News. The best closers soon 
     became rich men because their performances came with numbers 
     attached. Or as former Expos relief ace Jeff Reardon once 
     said, ``Jerome Holtzman is a friend of mine.''
       Mine, too.
       The Lardner Awards dinner will be a star-studded affair, 
     with David Halberstam presenting an award to Bob Costas, Ira 
     Berkow giving Holtzman his plaque and Bill Jauss honoring 
     former Chicago Daily News sports editor John Carmichael.

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