Smith, Red

Smith, Red (Walter Wellesley Smith), 1905–82, American sportswriter, b. Green Bay, Wis., grad. Notre Dame, 1927. After working on newspapers in St. Louis and Philadelphia, he began a syndicated column in the New York Herald Tribune in 1945. He joined the staff of the New York Times in 1972. Smith is regarded as one of the most literate and amusing sportswriters the craft has produced. Among his books are Out of the Red (1950), Views of Sport (1954), The Red Smith Reader (1982), To Absent Friends (1982), and the posthumous Red Smith on Baseball (2000).

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Smith, Red

 orig. Walter Wellesley Smith

(born Sept. 25, 1905, Green Bay, Wis., U.S.—died Jan. 15, 1982, Stamford, Conn.) U.S. sports columnist. Smith worked for various newspapers before his column, “Views of Sport,” began appearing in the New York Herald Tribune in 1945; it was syndicated soon thereafter. He joined The New York Times in 1971. His writing, mostly about major spectator sports, shunned jargon and displayed literary craftsmanship, wry humour, and deep knowledge. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976. His columns were collected in five books, including Out of the Red (1950) and Strawberries in the Wintertime (1974).