Sports News Writer

She learned from her parents to push ahead with your career even if you see no one else who looks like you, working in the same type of job. So she followed her two passions – baseball and writing – to earn the respect of the players she wrote about and the admiration of her sports writing profession. 

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Claire Smith (CS) was born in the Philadelphia suburbs, where she grew up in the Langhorne area. Her mother was a chemist at General Electric, who worked on a project that helped to put an early U.S. astronaut, John Glenn, into space. 

Her father was a painter and sculptor who also worked in advertising. His grandfather was a slave. 

CHILDHOOD

Especially during family dinnertime discussions, CS appreciated that her parents, both African Americans, worked at jobs where ‘people of color’ were rare – especially for her mother in the general field of science as a chemist. 

“This was the 1960s. My mom was the daughter of immigrants, and she was in a position to lead men, mostly, “CS said. “That’s a barrier-breaker, to me. She showed every day that being Black, being a woman, was never a burden; it was a birthright that was to be used to create outlets never before imagined.”

CS credits her mother for sparking CS’ interest in major league baseball, specifically the career of Jackie Robinson, the first Black major leaguer who broke the unofficial ‘color barrier’ in 1948 (before the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in public schools in their 1954 decision Brown v Board of Education) when Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. Many credit Robinson with demonstrating that racial integration can and should succeed. CS was paying close attention.

EDUCATION

Following her graduation from a public high school, CS enrolled at Penn State University, where she majored in journalism. She later earned a Master’s degree from Temple University. 

FIRST JOB NEVER BINDING AND LIKELY NOT FOREVER

CS’ first journalism job was as a sportswriter for the Bucks County Courier Times, before moving on to the now-defunct Philadelphia Bulletin. She would have been happy to spend her career there, but the newspaper folded, necessitating her move, becoming the first woman to cover a Major League Baseball (MLB) team full time when she began covering the Yankees for the Hartford Courant in 1983. 

From Hartford, CS moved to the New York Times, serving as a national baseball columnist for eight years. Then she returned to her home area as a columnist and assistant sports editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer for eight years before moving to writing for the sports television network ESPN. 

CHALLENGE – FEMALE TRYING TO DO HER JOB IN A MAN’S WORLD

After the first game of the 1984 National League Championship Series against the Chicago Cubs in Wrigley Field, Chicago, the San Diego Padres’ staff physically removed CS from the visitors’ clubhouse despite a National League rule requiring equal access to all properly accredited journalists during the playoffs. A San Diego player, first baseman Steve Garvey, left the clubhouse while telling CS that she still had a job to do so meet him outside, where he agreed to be interviewed. 

The next day, the Baseball Commissioner issued a new rule requiring equal access for all MLB locker rooms. 

“What I never, ever did was compare my road to other Black people, especially immigrants, because I might have been pushed out of a locker room, but I was never thrown out of a store or threatened with cigarette burns because I dared to work at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard to build ships to send into World War II,” said CS, looking back at her career. 

WRITING THEN TEACHING WRITING

Following her trailblazing career in sports journalism, CS is now educating the next generation of journalists while serving as a professor at Temple University in Philadelphia.

CAREER SATISFACTION

CS was the subject of a short biographical documentary film that was presented in 2018 at the Hall of Fame’s annual Baseball Film Festival. The film was narrated by the late Jackie Robinson’s daughter Sharon.

People who CS had covered while writing her sports related stories have helped to contribute more than a million dollars to the Claire Smith Center for Sports Media at Temple University. Included as donors are MLB and its players’ union, who together presented a check for $500,000 written during MLB’s labor negotiations with the players’ union before the 2022 season. When approached for MLB to contribute, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s response was, “You had me at Claire Smith.”

CS was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and won the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) Career Excellence Award in 2017, the first woman to do so. 

In 2023, CS was presented with the Associated Press Sports Editors’ Red Smith Award, considered the industry’s highest honor. She’s the first Black woman to win the award and the sixth woman and fourth Black journalist to receive the honor. 

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This career story is based on an article written by Maria McIlwain, published by The Philadelphia Inquirer on July 12, 2023, plus internet research.