John Holway

John B. Holway

• Born 1929

A prolific writer, John Holway has been writing books about baseball since 1944. His works have often been heavily reliant on anecdotes, many of which have later been found to be incorrect. On the other hand, he has been in the forefront of compiling Negro League statistics and debunking other myths about the leagues. He has written six books about the Negro Leagues, most notably The Complete Book of Baseball's Negro Leagues (2001) and Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues (1975), making him one of the major writers on the topic. He also wrote a 1955 book on Japanese baseball (Japan is Big League in Thrills), one of the first English-language books on the subject. In 1988 he won the Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of the year with Blackball Stars. He also wrote a pair of books about Ted Williams, The Last .400 Hitter (1991) and Ted the Kid (2006). In 2011, he was among the second class of inductees to receive the Henry Chadwick Award.

Holway served as a lieutenant in the Korean War, then was an economics analyst for Voice of America in addition to his baseball writings.

Further reading

• John Thorn: "John B. Holway", in The Baseball Research Journal, SABR, Volume 40, Number 1 (Spring 2011), p. 124.

Related Sites

• SABR tribute page