Thomas Boswell wins BBWAA Excellence Award after 52-year career
DALLAS -- After an iconic 52-year career at The Washington Post that ended in 2021, Thomas Boswell was elected the winner of the 2025 BBWAA Career Excellence Award on Tuesday.
The annual honor, in its 76th year, recognizes ¡°meritorious contributions to baseball writing.¡± It will be presented to Boswell during the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum induction weekend in Cooperstown, N.Y., from July 25-28.
Boswell joined the Post in 1969 and covered the ¡®75 World Series as a national baseball writer, a role which was a new concept at the time. That began a streak of Boswell covering every Fall Classic until he sat out the 2020 Series due to the pandemic.
This streak included the Nationals winning the 2019 World Series -- his 50th year at the Post. Boswell wrote, ¡°I went down to the packed Nationals Park infield and just slowly looked around, a full 360. No revelations, just a memory.¡±
In 1980, Boswell became a beat writer for the Orioles. In the early '80s, he invented the Total Average statistic. The metric was an early attempt to quantify offensive contribution through valuing extra-base hits and walks.
Boswell was promoted to columnist, a position he held until he retired in 2021. His r¨¦sum¨¦ at the Post included covering tennis, boxing and the Olympics, but baseball was his sweet spot.
He also wrote books including "Why Time Begins on Opening Day," "The Heart of the Order" and "How Life Imitates the World Series."
Boswell previously was inducted into the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame, the Washington D.C. Sports Hall of Fame and the Society of Professional Journalists D.C. Pro Chapter Hall of Fame.
The Career Excellence Award is voted on by BBWAA members with 10 or more consecutive years of service. Boswell was named on 167 of the 394 ballots (including two blanks). Paul Hoynes, a five-decade baseball beat writer in Cleveland, finished second with 158 votes. Bruce Jenkins, a San Francisco Chronicle baseball writer and columnist for nearly half a century, garnered 67 votes. The 2025 candidates were selected by a three-member, BBWAA-appointed committee.