Joe Strauss, baseball writer in Atlanta, Baltimore and St. Louis, dies at 54
|
Version 0 of 1. Joe Strauss, a sports columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who covered baseball for nearly three decades, died Dec. 27 at a St. Louis hospital. He was 54. Post-Dispatch sports editor Roger Hensley told the Associated Press that Mr. Strauss’s wife said he died from complications related to leukemia. Mr. Strauss, who joined the newspaper in 2002, became a sports columnist in 2012. He previously wrote for the Baltimore Sun and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Joe was certainly capable of writing a column that would pull at your heartstrings, and did so on many occasions,” Hensley said. “But when it took a strong voice to deliver something Joe felt the readers and fans of our local teams needed to hear, he pulled no punches.” Mr. Strauss was born in Richmond and graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1983. His first newspaper job was with the Gwinnett Daily Post in Georgia, where he was the newspaper’s beat writer for the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Falcons and the University of Georgia. He later became a national baseball writer and national writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, then joined the Baltimore Sun to cover the Orioles, including the end of Cal Ripken Jr.’s streak of consecutive games played. He was a 32-year member of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, the group that selects players for admission to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Survivors include his wife, Diana Minardi Strauss, and a daughter. |