John George Taylor Spink (November 6, 1888 – December 7, 1962) was the publisher of The Sporting News from 1914 until his death in 1962. He inherited the weekly American baseball newspaper from his father Charles Spink, younger brother of its founder Alfred H. Spink. In 1962, the Baseball Writers' Association of America established an annual J. G. Taylor Spink Award and named him the first recipient; Spink's name was removed from the award in February 2021 due to his history of supporting segregated baseball.[1]
Taylor Spink is first-class. Everything he does is first-class. He travels first-class, he works first-class. He nightclubs first-class and he tips first-class. His paper is first-class. He demands the best and he gets it.
Taylor Spink inherited The Sporting News when his father died in 1914; he would run The Sporting News for nearly a half-century, until his own death.[2] Author Richard Peterson credits his leadership as a reason why the paper became "the Bible of baseball".[5] During his tenure, The Sporting News published its first Baseball Register in 1940.[6] Spink was known for ruling the paper with "an iron will and an iron fist", working every day of the week and making phone calls at any time of day,[7] often so loudly that "he really didn't need a telephone."[8]
On the issue of racial integration in baseball, Spink wrote an editorial titled "No Good From Raising Race Issue", published in August 1942, which read in part: "There is no law against Negroes playing with white teams, or whites with colored clubs, but neither has invited the other for the obvious reason they prefer to draw their talent from their own ranks, and because the leaders of both groups know their crowd psychology and do not care to run the risk of damaging their own game."[9][10] In 1947, Spink published his biography of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first Commissioner of Baseball, titled Judge Landis and 25 Years of Baseball.[11]
In 1962, the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) inaugurated an annual award "for meritorious contributions to baseball writing"; the BBWAA named it the J. G. Taylor Spink Award and honored Spink as the first recipient.[1] Recipients of the award are recognized at annual National Baseball Hall of Fame ceremonies.[1] In February 2021, the BBWAA voted to remove his name from the award,[a] "due to Spink’s troubled history in supporting segregated baseball."[1][13][14]