Robert Creamer

Robert W. Creamer (July 14, 1922 – July 18, 2012)^[1] was an American sportswriter and editor. He spent most of his career at Sports Illustrated. He was born in Bronxville, New York,^[2] grew up in Tuckahoe, New York, and died in Saratoga Springs.

Creamer was one of the first hired on the staff of Sports Illustrated in 1954. He served the magazine as a senior editor from inception to 1984, and wrote the weekly Scorecard section of the magazine. He also wrote for the New York Times.

As an author Creamer wrote what many consider the definitive biography of Babe Ruth, entitled Babe: The Legend Comes to Life, in 1974.^[3] Of Creamer's Babe New Yorker editor and baseball writer Roger Angell wrote Ruth had “at last found the biographer he deserves in Robert Creamer.” Creamer wrote seven other baseball related books, including biographies of Mickey Mantle, Casey Stengel, Ralph Houk, the sportscaster Red Barber and the umpire Jocko Conlon. He also wrote Baseball in '41: A Celebration of the "Best Baseball Season Ever" (1991) (later published in paperback as Baseball and Other Matters in 1941). Creamer's lone novel, A Resemblance to Persons Living and Dead, is loosely based on politics, personages, and the environs of Tuckahoe and the town of Eastchester, N.Y.

In retirement, Creamer occasionally wrote retrospective articles for SI and could be seen on television commenting on historical moments in sports, many of which he covered. Creamer was a recipient of the 2012 Henry Chadwick Award from the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).^[4] He also appeared in Ken Burns' documentary Baseball and numerous other television baseball programs, including When It Was a Game.

Creamer graduated from Tuckahoe High School in 1940. According to his New York Times obituary, he attended Fordham and Syracuse Universities but never graduated. In World War II, he fought in Germany and was wounded. Following his discharge, he worked in advertising as a copywriter and at Collier’s Encyclopedia as an assistant editor.

References