Temple Alum and former Editor of the Temple News Bill Conlin received the J.G Taylor Spink Award from the MLB Hall of Fame for his work as a baseball writer.

The award, which was announced on Tuesday at the baseball winter meetings, is awarded annually to a sportswriter for “meritorious contributions to baseball writing.”

Conlin has been writing for the Philadelphia Daily News for 45 years. He became a columnist in 1987 and has also written numerous baseball articles for the Sporting News.

Conlin graduated from Temple in 1961, where he won the Sigma Delti Chi Award as Outstanding Graduate in Journalism. He was the first Editor of the TTN so be appointed to successive terms and he won the Sword Award in 1960 for service to the university.

Conlin said that in 1960, he worked “longer and harder this year than at any time in my career, including double shifts as editor, then as composing room and darkroom worker. The hands-on experience gave me a real sense of how a newspaper is put together, the teamwork it takes and the rush of pride when you hold the finished product.”

Conlin is the second Temple sports journalist to make national news in the past week. Longtime Philly basketball writer and Temple alum Phil Jasner passed away this Friday. Coincidentally enough, the man that gave Jasner his first byline was none other than Bill Conlin.