Longtime Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell earned many awards during his more than half century as a sportswriter, and several years into his retirement, he’s secured his most prestigious honor yet.
Boswell will be honored as the 2025 winner of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s Career Excellence Award, what the organization calls “the most prestigious prize in baseball journalism.” He will be honored during the July induction ceremonies at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
Boswell, who retired from the Post in 2021, still contributes columns on a regular basis, and was writing a piece about the New York Mets signing superstar Juan Soto this week when he was notified he’d won the award.
“I thought it was perfect that I had the dual reaction of being super happy about the election by other baseball writers — but also still being caught in that moment of doing the thing I’ve done all my life that I love so much,” Boswell said (via The Washington Post).
“Writing, creating, being right in the aggravation and difficulty of it, and the pleasure when the good phrase finally gives itself up to the chokehold. A perfect combination of the thing I love doing all my life and the call.”
Boswell’s feats in the industry are legendary. He covered 44 straight World Series, a streak broken by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. He’s published seven books, written for several other publications and been featured in TV shows and baseball documentaries.
Now 77, Boswell is still making great contributions to the paper on a part-time basis. In his column on Soto, published Tuesday, he blasted the deal as a massive overpay by Mets owner Steve Cohen. He said the deal might be five, possibly even 10, years too long.
“Soto is one of my favorite hitters to watch — ever,” Boswell wrote. “But if Albert Pujols could get creaky and only hit .261 from age 31 onward, then old age still has its thumb on the wheel.”
Many baseball writers were thrilled to see Boswell honored.
“Tom Boswell is one of the greatest baseball writers who ever lived, and someone, my entire time as a baseball writer myself, I have read, looked up to, studied, genuinely cared about everything he thought,” The Athletic’s Jayson Stark told The Post. “I’m so happy for him that we finally honored him.”