By DALE PHELPS
The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.)

Much of this year's APSE convention was spent considering the future and how our business is changing in an Internet-connected world.

The Red Smith Award luncheon was a pause to remember the past and recall the contributions of the late Joe McGuff, former editor, sports editor and sports columnist for The Kansas City Star and one of the founders of APSE.

McGuff died at age 79 in February of complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Dale Bye, senior managing editor at The Sporting News and former executive sports editor of The Star, presided at the luncheon and spoke along with current Star columnist Joe Posnanski.

"All of us are here today partly because of Joe McGuff – he was one of APSE's five founders," said Bye, who worked with and for McGuff for 13 years in Kansas City. "At the time, the mission of APSE was simple: Persuade the Associated Press to provide better service to its newspaper clients. To Joe, that meant he would have an opportunity to provide a better sports section for his readers – for his community. For nearly 60 years of his life, that community was Kansas City, and Joe did what he could to make his community major league in every sense of that term."

Posnanski described McGuff as part of an era in which sportswriters and editors tried to make a difference in a direct way. Without McGuff, he said, there would be no Kansas City Royals, no Kansas City Chiefs, no Truman Sports Complex.

He cited McGuff's battles with former Kansas City Athletics owner Charles O. Finley and the subsequent creation of the Royals as an example of the activist nature of McGuff's journalism.

Finley bought the Athletics in 1960 and spent several years threatening to move the team to a variety of cities – Dallas, Atlanta, Louisville, Milwaukee, Seattle – before deciding to shift the team to Oakland after the 1967 season. Convinced that Kansas City would be better off without Finley, McGuff stopped trying to save the A's and turned his attention getting a new franchise for Kansas City.

McGuff attended the American League owners' meeting at which Finley was given formal permission to move to Oakland. The owners also announced that a replacement team would be put in Kansas City "as soon as practical." That vague timetable didn't set well with McGuff, who sought out Boston owner Tom Yawkey and persuaded him to gather the other owners and get them to do better. The result was a commitment to give Kansas City an expansion franchise beginning in 1969.

McGuff's role as an advocate in that era, Posnanski said, contrasts with today's preference to "write the news not be the news."

"He loved a cause," Posnanski said. "Joe McGuff wrote wonderful columns. Joe McGuff made a difference."

While McGuff's approach in some matters might be part of a bygone era, his qualities as a person remained timeless.

"Joe treated the people he wrote about – and the people he wrote for – with respect. It didn't make sense to him to do it any other way," Bye said. "He once said: 'I just felt it was possible to make your point without cutting out the man's heart and laying it on the pavement. You try to stay away from vendettas and remember that your ultimate responsibility is to the guy who puts down his quarter for the newspaper.' "

McGuff's wife, Kay, accepted the award. Several members of his family also attended the luncheon, something that would have pleased McGuff.

"He always was a strong supporter of APSE. He loved Kansas City, he loved baseball and he loved The Kansas City Star. But all of them had to get in line behind his family," Bye said. "Not only as a sports columnist and editor – but as a man – Joe McGuff is a most worthy recipient of the Red Smith Award."

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