Sportswriter

Reprinted from Sunday's late editions. Cameron Crockett Snyder, a sportswriter for The Sun who covered the Baltimore Colts during their heyday and was honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame, died Friday of lung cancer at his home in Fullerton. He was 93. "He was a great fellow. Everybody liked Cameron," said former Colt Art Donovan, a Hall of Famer. "He knew football because he played in college. Sometimes, at Colts practice [in the 1950s], the coaches let 'Toughie' fill in at offensive guard."

Ravens Preston named Md. Sportswriter of Year The Baltimore Sun's Mike Preston , who has covered the Ravens since the franchise came to Baltimore in 1996, first as a beat reporter and then as a columnist, has been honored as the Maryland Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. Preston, who has worked for The Sun since 1983, is a native of Essex and a graduate of Towson State, where he played football. He will be honored at the organization's 53rd annual awards event in June in Salisbury, N.C. This is Preston's first Sportswriter of the Year honor.

William K. "Bill" Free, a retired Baltimore Sun sportswriter and sports car enthusiast, died Friday of a perforated bowel at his Reisterstown home. He was 66. Mr. Free was born in Frederick and raised in Creagerstown. After graduating in 1961 from Thurmont High School, where he played baseball, basketball and soccer, he earned a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1965 from the University of South Carolina. Mr. Free served in the Army as a sportswriter and then went to work as a newspaper reporter for the Gettysburg Times, Waynesboro Record and Harrisburg Patriot-News before beginning his 39-year career with The Baltimore Sun's sports department in 1969.

SUPER BOWL STEELERS VS. PACKERS 6:25 p.m., Feb.6 TV: Chs. 45, 5 Line: Packers by 2 1/2 Baseball Sun reporter Zrebiec is Md. Sportswriter of the Year Jeff Zrebiec , who has covered the Orioles for The Baltimore Sun since the 2005 season, has been named 2010 Maryland Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. Zrebiec, a Loyola College graduate who joined The Sun in 2000 and also has covered high schools and colleges for the newspaper, will be honored at the organization's 52nd annual awards event in May. This is his first Sportswriter of the Year honor.

When metro reporter Rafael Alvarez first arrived at The Sun as a clerk in the sports department, he was filled with the dream of becoming a prize-winning reporter and animatedly expressed his career ambitions to Jimmy Jackson, a veteran of the staff."

IF YOU ASK ME," said Slats Grobnik, "that woman sportswriter got what she deserved when the guy waved his whatsis at her in the locker room."I didn't ask you."Then ask me and I'll tell you."You already did."Oh. Yeah, I guess I did. What I mean is, she brought the whole thing on herself. If she hadn't been there, it wouldn't have happened, would it?"If we weren't sitting here having a beer, we wouldn't be sitting here having a beer, would we?"I don't understand what that means."I don't either.

A. Douglas Brown, a veteran sportswriter for The Sun and The Evening Sun who covered all of Baltimore's professional teams in nearly four decades of reporting, died Sunday of cancer at his home in Pasadena. He was 66.Mr. Brown was remembered by colleagues as a consummate professional with a reputation for even-tempered reporting, no matter the subject."Doug gave his all to every assignment, whether it was a high school game or the World Series," said Bill Tanton, who was his sports editor at The Evening Sun for more than 20 years.

"Dad? I'm in the press box at Yankee Stadium."I cupped my hand over the phone, barely able to contain the excitement I knew it would be unprofessional to reveal. Bob Reimer's oldest daughter was covering an Orioles-Yankees series from that storied place."Will they show you on TV?" he asked, and I could hear him smiling."Oh, Dad," I said, exasperated.The Sun had hired me as a sportswriter just months before, and sent me to an important -- and emotional -- baseball series that weekend in New York.

Surely, being a sportswriter must be included in the newly published "Jobs Rated Almanac," which sent us to our nearest book store to peruse a copy. Inside the red cover are 345 pages of analysis and documentation. Yet, woefully, not a mere mention of sportswriters.L It's as if none existed, either by intent or blind omission.But, as we look around The Baltimore Sun sports department, immersed in the daily grind-it-out process are Phil Jackman, Mike Preston, Mark Hyman, Sandra McKee, John Stewart, Jerry Bembry and others, too, all in pursuit of the written word on matters sport.

Perhaps you have a boring job, the kind of job where the most interesting thing that ever happens is when the vending machine gets refilled, an event that sends an electric current of excitement through the cubicles. ("Whoa! Dibs on the bagel chips!")Perhaps sometimes -- when you're sitting in yet another pointless meeting, staying awake by deliberately inflicting paper cuts on yourself -- you think: "I wish I had a job wherein I could go to exciting events and meet famous people. I wish I were a sportswriter!"

William K. "Bill" Free, a retired Baltimore Sun sportswriter and sports car enthusiast, died Friday of a perforated bowel at his Reisterstown home. He was 66. Mr. Free was born in Frederick and raised in Creagerstown. After graduating in 1961 from Thurmont High School, where he played baseball, basketball and soccer, he earned a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1965 from the University of South Carolina. Mr. Free served in the Army as a sportswriter and then went to work as a newspaper reporter for the Gettysburg Times, Waynesboro Record and Harrisburg Patriot-News before beginning his 39-year career with The Baltimore Sun's sports department in 1969.

Baltimore Sun picks Each week, Sun columnists and NFL reporters, plus WJZ's Mark Viviano, will pick NFL games (not against the spread). Super Bowl XLIV Colts vs. Saints Edward Lee Last games: 1-1 Overall: 184-82 Saints, 35-33 New Orleans deserves it after enduring Hurricane Katrina. Drew Brees passes for 3 TDs, but Darren Sharper is named MVP after returning an INT for a TD and forcing Pierre Garcon to fumble on the final series of the game.

Reprinted from Sunday's late editions. Cameron Crockett Snyder, a sportswriter for The Sun who covered the Baltimore Colts during their heyday and was honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame, died Friday of lung cancer at his home in Fullerton. He was 93. "He was a great fellow. Everybody liked Cameron," said former Colt Art Donovan, a Hall of Famer. "He knew football because he played in college. Sometimes, at Colts practice [in the 1950s], the coaches let 'Toughie' fill in at offensive guard."

I think the president should invite Erin Andrews to the White House for a beer. But if Mr. Obama wants to include the creepy peeping Tom who videotaped the ESPN reporter naked through a hole in her hotel room wall, plus all the clowns at Fox, CBS and the New York Post who televised the video or ran still pictures taken from it, he is going to need more than a picnic table on the White House lawn. It seems to me that if the president of the United States is now refereeing community racial dust-ups, we ought to be able to count on him to step in when the national media and the world of sports demonstrate - 30 years after the courts granted women sports reporters equal status - that they haven't learned a thing.

R. Gordon Beard, a retired Associated Press sportswriter and well-known master of ceremonies who was also an author and expert on Baltimorese, died Saturday of Parkinson's disease at Perring Parkway Center. The longtime Gardenville resident was 82. Mr. Beard - who was known to generations of readers by the byline Gordon Beard - as born and raised in South Baltimore. While a student at Southern High School, he played basketball and baseball and enrolled in a public speaking class. He also found out he had a talent for making people laugh - as was shown when a physics teacher asked the class one day, "What happens when a body is immersed in water?"

I wish someone on the copy desk of The New York Times had picked up on and questioned Dave Anderson's use of "Bawlmore" in a column he wrote the day after the Colts put an end to purple mania and the Ravens' dream of possibly going all the way to the Super Bowl XLI. Anderson wrote that natives pronounced Baltimore as "Bawlmore," and then used it throughout the column. I reread it several times and wondered if it was a not-so-subtle way of making fun of how folks speak in these latitudes -- a linguistic put-down of the city.

I wish someone on the copy desk of The New York Times had picked up on and questioned Dave Anderson's use of "Bawlmore" in a column he wrote the day after the Colts put an end to purple mania and the Ravens' dream of possibly going all the way to the Super Bowl XLI. Anderson wrote that natives pronounced Baltimore as "Bawlmore," and then used it throughout the column. I reread it several times and wondered if it was a not-so-subtle way of making fun of how folks speak in these latitudes -- a linguistic put-down of the city.