Bill Conlin, a sportswriter honored at the Baseball Hall of Fame and marred by accusations of child abuse, died Thursday in Florida at the age of 79. In December 2011, four individuals publicly accused Conlin of abusing them as children in the 1970s in an explosive Philadelphia Inquirer story. They were emboldened to speak out in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky investigation at Penn State. Conlin immediately resigned from the Philadelphia Daily News, where he had been a sportswriter for over four decades. He then became a recluse in Largo, Florida where he died Thursday.
Via Philly.com…
"Bill Conlin, a Daily News sports columnist whose writing sparkled with incision and erudition, but whose career ended in the disgrace of child-molestation accusations, died yesterday in Largo, Fla. He was 79.
Conlin resigned from the Daily News on Dec. 20, 2011, shortly before the publication of stories in the Inquirer about accusations that he molested seven children in the 1960s and '70s.
The revelations hit colleagues and acquaintances with a shock wave that has yet to subside."
While Conlin made his name in Philly, he was also a fixture on ESPN airwaves for years as a panelist on the Sports Reporters as part of the first wave of local sports columnists to receive national notoriety. Nowadays, columnists from around the country are given national platforms on a daily basis on multiple television networks.
Conlin was given the Spink Award by the BBWAA and honored at the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011 before the allegations were made public. Ironically enough in light of the recent news cycle, the BBWAA released an infamous statement defending Conlin when the Philadelphia Inquirer story first broke as being a "member in good standing."
Whatever contributions Conlin made to sportswriting, they will always be overshadowed by the allegations of child abuse that were made public at the end of his life.