Original watercolor created for the actual printed baseball card depicting Lucius Benjamin ‘Luke’ Appling from the 1935 Diamond Star baseball card set. Bill Madden Collection. Estimate: $50-$5,000. Sterling Associates image
CLOSTER, N.J. – In the field of sports journalism, few can rival Bill Madden’s record when it comes to chalking up career highlights. A UPI sportswriter for nine years, Madden joined the New York Daily News in 1978, first covering the New York Yankees beat, then launching his own religiously followed column. He is a distinguished member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, and for the last 12 years has served on the Historical Overview Committee of the National Baseball Hall of Fame that compiles the ballots for the Veterans Committee elections. Madden also authored several books about the Yankees, including the New York Times bestseller Steinbrenner – the Last Lion of Baseball and 2003’s Pride of October – What it was to be Young and Yankee, and is considered a top expert on the team’s history. But Madden’s crowning achievement was his own election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, as winner of the 2010 J.G. Taylor Spink Award.
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