By SCOTT KENDRICK
Willoughby (Ohio) News-Herald

	RED SMITH AWARD

A big voice in a seven-newspaper town, Cannon had as much competitive spirit as any of his subjects.

"If Jimmy Cannon was told he had won the Red Smith Award, the first thing he would have said is, 'How come it wasn't the Jimmy Cannon Award?' " said New York Times columnist Dave Anderson, the 1994 Red Smith Award winner. "Jimmy was as tough a competitor as we had in this business."

Cannon, the brash, legendary columnist for the New York Post and the Journal-American, received the award June 25 at the APSE Convention in Philadelphia.

"He was long, long overdue for this award," said Philadelphia Daily News columnist Bill Conlin.

Conlin idolized Cannon while a teenager in Brooklyn. Early in his career, Conlin got a chance to get to know Cannon.

"He said, 'Conlin, I like your work,' " Conlin said. "And that was really was almost like being goosed by God."

Cannon, who died in 1973 at age 63, had a knack for "touching a nerve" with his writing, said Newark Star-Ledger columnist Jerry Izenberg, the 2000 Red Smith Award winner.

Jimmy Cannon

"He was the guy who wrote with his ear before he wrote with his typewriter," Izenberg said. "Jimmy knew who was reading his column. ... He was a great bridge to people. It was impossible not to fall in love with his writing."

Cannon quit school at 16, and started in the business as a copy boy for the New York Daily News. He was a war correspondent for Stars and Stripes in World War II and Korea. He was the first $100,000-a-year sports writer.

Cannon knew his working-class readership, and his columns of non-sequitur one-liners, "Nobody asked me, but ..." became a signature column. Cannon brought the stars of the day to the masses. His acquaintances ranged from Joe DiMaggio to Joe Louis to Ernest Hemingway to the biggest Broadway stars.

Conlin recounted a line from a Cannon column after a Louis fight. "He was a credit to his race," Cannon wrote. "The human race."

"That was considered a terrifically bold thing to write in those days," Conlin said.

Cannon's nephew, Tom Cannon, accepted the award.