Warren Brown

Warren William Brown

• School St. Ignatius College

• Born January 3, 1894 in Somersville, CA USA
• Died November 19, 1978 in Forest Park, IL USA

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

Warren Brown was considered one of the top sports writers and editors of the twentieth century, his lengthy career covering forty-five World Series and forty Kentucky Derbies. Beginning his journalism career in 1916, he proved himself to be a versatile and prolific newsman, skillfully covering hard news as well as the sports stories that made his reputation. Brown was well-educated and noted for his "exceptional mastery of the English language, his encyclopedic memory, and his razor-sharp wit. He excelled at coining memorable phrases, whether behind a typewriter or behind a podium, and in either venue his humor could be sarcastic or benign--as easily capable of deflating as well as inflating," remarked Richard Brodenker in the Dictionary of Literary Biography.

Brown was born in California and grew up in San Francisco. Baseball and prizefighting, two of his favorite sports, were flourishing in San Francisco at that time, providing him with many heroes. He progressed so rapidly in his studies that at the age of eleven, he was sent to high school. He played baseball in college and eventually starting as a professional player with Sacramento's team in the Pacific Coast League. In his first appearance for Sacramento as a pinch-hitter, Brown hit safely off former Chicago White Sox pitching star Doc White. Despite this and other thrilling moments, he returned to college at the conclusion of the 1914 season. He had gone 2 for 3 in his brief pro career.

After graduation, Brown worked part-time at the San Francisco Bulletin, earning five dollars a week writing notes on semiprofessional baseball. He was soon publishing stories with his own byline, and his career was launched. After serving in World War I, he returned to the Bulletin but soon was employed at William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Call-Post, where he became the sports editor while still in his early twenties. He later worked again for the Bulletin.

Besides his sports coverage, Brown also wrote musical reviews and covered politics, murder trials and other news stories. Along with fellow journalist Edward T. Gleeson, Brown uncovered some wrongdoings in the Pacific Coast League. The two published their findings. Eventually the league's president and several team owners were replaced as a result of their investigations. Working in California at that time, Brown could hardly fail to be immersed in the so-called "Hearst style," which Brodenker noted can be "identified by trick idiom, beautiful phrasing, and vivid imagery. Brown, however, held steadfastly to the concept of simplicity."

Brown's knowledge of boxing and his admiration of Jack Dempsey provided another career opportunity in 1921, when he took on the task of supervising the champion's press relations prior to a bout with Georges Carpentier. The job led him to Atlantic City on the East Coast. Though he returned to San Francisco in 1922, he had his sights set on a writing position for a New York paper, and it was not long before he had secured a position with the New York Evening Mail. Brown was now working in the same city as legendary sportswriters such as Heywood Broun, Damon Runyon, Grantland Rice, and Ring Lardner. He soon moved to the Hearst-owned New York Journal, but in 1923 the Hearst organization transferred him to the Chicago Herald and Examiner. By 1926, he had a column running six times a week in the paper, titled "So They Tell Me," which focused on a variety of sports performers, athletic competitions, sport oddities, and general human-interest items.

Brown continued to work for the Hearst corporation during the 1930s and into the 1940s, but signed on to Marshall Field's Chicago Sun early in the decade, taking his "So They Tell Me" column with him. He stayed with the Sun until 1946, when he returned to the Hearst organization. In 1947, he published Win, Lose, or Draw, which included Brown's reflections on his sportswriting career and his association with many great sporting personalities. New York Times critic Harold Kaese took a tongue-in-cheek look at the book: "By being so witty, entertaining and informative, Warren probably has done the sportswriting industry irreparable harm in writing his memoirs.... There will be no salary increases in the near future for sports writers whose publishers read Brown's expose of our charming circle and find it a strong argument for less money and longer hours."

Brown also had a long-standing sideline as an after-dinner speaker, which developed into regular guest appearances on Bing Crosby's nationally-broadcast network radio program, and occasional spots on other popular shows. He even wrote some of his own material for these programs. He also became active in working with the National Baseball Hall of Fame. His career stretched on for more than five decades, and he continued to write well into his senior years. At the age of seventy-eight, he contributed a column, "Down Memory Lane," to Baseball Digest magazine.

Brown relied on anecdotes to convey his impressions of the sporting world. In his books on Chicago's baseball teams, Brown added an entertaining style to a foundation of facts. "Brown has done an exhaustive job of research and brightened the resulting text with a leavening of anecdotes," wrote Robert Cromie in his review of The Chicago White Sox.

In 1973, he shared the J.G. Taylor Spink Award with John Drebinger and John F. Kieran.

Brown died in 1978, at the age of eighty-six.

Further Reading

• Warren Brown: "The Game I'll Never Forget", Baseball Digest, July 1970, pp. 31-34. [1]