Pulitzer Prize-winning sports columnist Dave Anderson dead at 89

Credit: MIKE MERGEN

Credit: MIKE MERGEN

Dave Anderson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times, died Thursday in Cresskill, New Jersey. He was 89.

>> Read more trending news

Anderson, who joined the Times in 1966 as a general assignment reporter, took over the newspaper's "Sports of the Times" column in 1971, The New York Times reported.

Anderson won the Pulitzer in commentary in 1981, one of three sportswriters to win the award. The first was Red Smith, Anderson’s colleague at the Times, in 1976; Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times won the award in 1990.

Anderson wrote for his high school and college newspapers and got his first professional job at 16 when he was hired as a messenger at The New York Sun, the Times reported.

He covered the Dodgers for the Brooklyn Eagle in 1953-54 and went to the New York Journal-American in 1955.

Anderson won the Associated Press Sports Editors’ Red Smith Award in 1994.

About the Author