Tracy Ringolsby, who has written extensively for 30 years about every aspect of professional baseball, was elected the 2005 winner of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award in balloting announced Dec. 7 by the BBWAA. Ringolsby will receive the award that is presented annually to a sportswriter "for meritorious contributions to baseball writing" during the 2006 National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum induction ceremony July 30 at the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Ringolsby received 225 votes from the 429 ballots cast by BBWAA members with 10 or more consecutive years' service in becoming the 57th winner of the award since its inception in 1962 and named for the first winner, the founder of The Sporting News, known during his lifetime as the "Baseball Bible."

Joe Goddard, who spent three decades as a beat writer for the Chicago Sun Times covering the Cubs and the White Sox in alternate years, received 128 votes. The late Vern Plagenhoef, who covered the Detroit Tigers for Michigan's Booth Newspaper Group and was a former national secretary-treasurer of the BBWAA, got 76.

The candidates were selected by a three-member, BBWAA-appointed committee and announced at the All-Star Game meeting July 12 at Detroit. Voting was conducted in November through a mail ballot, a process that began in 2002.

Ringolsby, a native of Cheyenne, Wyo, has covered baseball for 30 seasons — 28 as a beat reporter and two as a national writer. He has worked for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver since 1992 and has covered the Colorado Rockies since they began play as a National League expansion franchise in 1993.

Tracy began covering baseball for United Press International's Kansas City bureau in 1976 and has also worked at the Long Beach (Calif.) Press Telegram, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Kansas City Star and Dallas Morning News before joining the Rocky Mountain News prior to the expansion draft in November 1992.

In addition to being a consummate beat writer, Ringolsby was one of the first baseball writers to concentrate on scouting and player development. His focus on those vital areas, which largely had been overlooked, enabled Tracy to provide more depth to his beat coverage. In 1981, he helped found Baseball America, a publication solely devoted to those areas at the outset, and helped give it early credibility. He has worked tirelessly to have scouts recognized in the Hall of Fame.

Ringolsby was at the forefront of labor coverage, dating to December 1975 when he was in the federal courtroom in Kansas City for the opening day of testimony in the Andy Messersmith-Dave McNally case that resulted in players gaining free agency.

Tracy has been chairperson of five BBWAA chapters and was the BBWAA's national president in 1986. He was co-chair of a committee that designed the rotation system for All-Star Game and post-season press seating and of the Spink Award Committee that ushered in the current system of voting rather than a hand-raised vote at the BBWAA World Series meeting. Ringolsby also serves on the BBWAA Historical Overview Committee, which formulates the Hall of Fame's Veterans Committee ballot.

Previous Spink Award Recipients:
2004 Peter Gammons; 2003 Murray Chass; 2002 Hal McCoy; 2001 Joe Falls; 2000 Ross Newhan; 1999 Hal Lebovitz; 1998 Bob Stevens; 1997 Sam Lacy; 1996 Charley Feeney; 1995 Joseph Durso; 1994 No award; 1993 Wendell Smith; 1992 Leonard Koppett, Bus Saidt; 1991 Ritter Collett; 1990 Phil Collier; 1989 Jerome Holtzman; 1988 Bob Hunter, Ray Kelly; 1987 Jim Murray; 1986 Jack Lang; 1985 Earl Lawson; 1984 Joe McGuff; 1983 Ken Smith; 1982 Si Burick; 1981 Bob Addie, Allen Lewis; 1980 Joe Reichler, Milton Richman; 1979 Bob Broeg, Tommy Holmes; 1978 Tim Murnane, Dick Young; 1977 Gordon Cobbledick, Edgar Munzel; 1976 Harold Kaese, Red Smith; 1975 Tom Meany, Shirley Povich; 1974 John Carmichael, James Isaminger; 1973 Warren Brown, John Drebinger, John F. Kieran; 1972 Dan Daniel, Fred Lieb, J. Roy Stockton; 1971 Frank Graham; 1970 Heywood C. Broun; 1969 Sid Mercer; 1968 H.G. Salsinger; 1967 Damon Runyon; 1966 Grantland Rice; 1965 Charles Dryden; 1964 Hugh Fullerton; 1963 Ring Lardner; 1962 J.G. Taylor Spink.