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Cantankerous, crusty, generous: How Gerry Fraley influenced SportsDay

The sportswriter was posthumously named the 2024 winner of the Career Excellence Award from the Baseball Writers Association of America.

Former Dallas Morning News sportswriter Gerry Fraley will be honored during the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s induction weekend in Cooperstown.

As we’ve said before, Gerry Fraley would hate this.

The longtime baseball scribe, who worked for The Dallas Morning News for more than 25 years, would hate what follows even more.

But this is our newspaper, and we get to honor those we love.

Fraley was posthumously named the 2024 winner of the Baseball Writers Association of America’s Career Excellence Award. He will be honored Saturday during the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s induction weekend in Cooperstown, N.Y.

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He is the third former DMN baseball writer to be honored with the award. Tracy Ringolsby, who preceded Fraley on the Rangers beat, won the award in 2005. Tim Kurkjian won in 2022. Fraley, who died in 2019 at 64 after a two-year bout with cancer, was runner-up to John Lowe for the award in 2023.

Below are some anecdotes from some of Fraley’s SportsDay colleagues, who had the honor of working with him over the last three decades.

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Cantankerous, crusty, generous

A game between the Houston Astros and the Atlanta Braves at the Astrodome in the early ‘80s was moving along without incident when management tried to scare up some enthusiasm for the home team with an image of clapping hands on the primeval scoreboard. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another sportswriter in the press box lean out over the railing, from whence he yelled to unsuspecting fans below, “Clap, you sheep!”

“Who,” I asked the guy next to me, “is that?!?”

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“Gerry Fraley,” he said.

Such was my introduction to the best sportswriter I would ever know. Frales was brilliant, hard-working, thorough, versatile, cantankerous, crusty, intolerant, generous, thoughtful, a friend for life. Complex, in short. A ballwriter’s ballwriter. Never missed a deadline. Always filed two minutes early.

Baseball was his sport of preference, but he could write anything, and did, right up to the end. His judgment on any subject was unerring. Once I ran a couple of story ideas past him near the end of a Rangers game. He countered with five better ones.

He could be intimidating, but once you cleared his high bar, you were a friend for life. He’d do anything for you. Never left a colleague behind in the press box.

Like a lot of ballwriters, he loved old-time rasslin’ and the Three Stooges. My goal any time we sat next to each other was to make him laugh, which, Three Stooges to the contrary, was hard to do. But it was always worth the trouble. A great laugh.

I miss him, as does anyone who loves an insightful, tightly written game story. No one got in and out of a story quicker. His own ended far too soon.

Kevin Sherrington, SportsDay columnist

Better prepared than you

His memory was encyclopedic.

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He knew where every player was from, whether they were a star or not. He knew the name of every scout’s wife and kids. He knew some minor league coach who’d had some impact on every player who wandered through the clubhouse. He remembered details from their previous conversations months or, in some cases, years earlier.

It was so intimidating to watch Gerry work through a room of baseball scouts. They’d come in to watch the Rangers at the old Ballpark and they’d gather in the media dining room before the game. Inevitably, when I’d get ready to go eat, I’d ask Gerry and he’d say: “I’ll be back there in a minute.” Then 15 minutes would go by and I’d look up and he had a whole table of scouts in the palm of his hand. Had information on every player. They would come to him to trade info because he was that well-versed in everything that was going on, even when he wasn’t around the park for days.

He couldn’t do enough for the scouts when they came through. He knew the lonely life of baseball lifers and they couldn’t have had a better friend than Gerry. It was amazing — and intimidating — to watch. There was no way to follow that. He came to the park every day better prepared than everybody else. And everybody knew it.

Evan Grant, Rangers insider

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Not just a baseball Hall of Famer

Pictured here in 1997, Evan Grant's first year at The Dallas Morning News, are Rangers beat...
Pictured here in 1997, Evan Grant's first year at The Dallas Morning News, are Rangers beat writers Grant (left), Gerry Fraley (center) and former national baseball writer Ken Daley. Fraley, who began with The News in 1989, died in 2019 at the age of 64. He was a mentor and friend to Grant.(The Dallas Morning News / File photo)

Gerry Fraley is going into the writer’s wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The only reason that’s happening is because he covered baseball. You would find Gerry in the Pro Football Hall of Fame if he covered the NFL. The same goes for basketball and hockey.

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There are a lot of outstanding writers and reporters in our profession. Few rivaled Gerry in their ability to write as incisively on as many different sports. This isn’t hyperbole. His deep, nuanced knowledge of every sport made him comfortable in any locker room and set him apart.

In this competitive industry, the high standards Gerry held for himself sometimes made him difficult to be around. He wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

Luckily for me, I like tea.

Gerry and I didn’t always agree, but we enjoyed our time together on assignments and had some fascinating conversations along the way. Above all, I always knew how much he cared.

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Frank Luksa was a wonderful columnist for The News who, like Gerry, left us too early. He was enthralled by the game stories Gerry wrote on deadline while covering the Rangers. Frank told me he learned something every time he read one of Gerry’s stories and how that was a rare trait. Frank then apologized if that offended me.

Offended?

Please. I agreed. Gerry’s love of journalism and wrestling was unmatched.

Come to think of it, that’s another Hall of Fame where Gerry belongs.

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David Moore, Cowboys insider

Take a day off, man...

Gerry was one of the easier people on the staff to deal with despite his sometimes grumpy persona. Exception was his work schedule.

I had a constant battle with him to get him to take a day off. When someone else was assigned to Rangers to give him a rest, he was at the park anyway.

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Dave Smith, former VP and Assistant Managing Editor for Sports

Who is this imposter?

I became Gerry’s boss when I was 26. I knew nothing about him personally, other than the fact that he could be a bit ... prickly. But he was a total pro.

We went to lunch. I remember Gerry wanted to just talk on the phone; he had work to do, after all. But I was adamant.

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At lunch, Gerry spent a good 10 minutes cooing and making faces at the baby behind me. I thought he was playing a trick on me — where was the gruff, grizzled sportswriter I was terrified of? Don’t worry, he eventually showed up and rightfully humbled me. But it became clear to me that day who Gerry was as a person.

Tommy Magelssen, SportsDay sports editor

I’m on deadline, here

Gerry had a reputation that preceded me meeting him. In 2016 I was a sports reporting intern at The Dallas Morning News. That meant doing a lot of different things and meeting a lot of different people. That included covering a Rangers playoff game against the Blue Jays. It was hours before first pitch, and the press box was pretty quiet. The few people that were there were chatting, eating, or doing anything to pass the time — except Gerry.

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Tommy Magelssen oversaw Rangers coverage and the interns at the time. He walked me over to Gerry, who was furiously working at his computer. Before Tommy could finish his introduction of me, Gerry shooed us away. “Not now,” he said.

I never really had the chance to talk with Gerry after that, but the moment is something I’ll never forget. Not because of the bluntness of being turned away — that, quite honestly, was expected — but because of Gerry’s commitment to his craft. It was a reputation that preceded him, and a lesson I still consider during my reporting career.

Joseph Hoyt, former Rangers insider

Nice shirt

Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig spoke highly of Gerry Fraley. Here they are in...
Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig spoke highly of Gerry Fraley. Here they are in 2014.(Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)
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An unfortunate aspect about the Hall of Fame ceremonies is that Gerry Fraley won’t be there to be honored. He almost certainly would have worn a colorful Hawaiian shirt showing his disdain for convention.

He deserves to be recognized for his keen reporting skills and outstanding ability to produce insightful stories on deadline. In his years at The Dallas Morning News, there were countless times that Gerry worked on two stories nearly simultaneously to account for the outcome of close games — one in case the Rangers won and one in case they lost. All that needed to be plugged in was the final score. And this was after he filed a story hours earlier in case the game did not end.

Gerry’s game stories that didn’t have to defy deadline were never routine. He educated the reader — and many an editor — with details he had dug up through interviews with scouts, coaches and players.

Gerry was known for his coverage of baseball, but he could have earned Hall-of-Fame recognition on many other beats, including NASCAR. If there was a topic that he couldn’t write about with knowledge and confidence, it never revealed itself.

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He was one of a kind, and those of us who crossed paths with him professionally were better off for the experience.

Mark Kazlowski, former SportsDay copy editor

A golden ticket

Gerry was the best sports reporter I’ve ever met. Period. He also was the best SportsDay teammate I’ve had in three decades because he often knew more about the subject matter I was trying to tackle — and not only was quick to share his knowledge in a non-condescending way, but his book of sources’ phone numbers was legendarily extensive.

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In short, if you were a friend of Gerry’s and especially a sportswriter friend, it was like having a golden ticket.

What I most respected and appreciated about Gerry, though, is how much he loved his sons.

Brad Townsend, Mavericks insider

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