Claire Smith is the first woman to win the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for meritorious contributions to baseball writing and will be honored during the Hall of Fame's induction weekend next July in Cooperstown, New York. The 62-year-old Smith covered the New York Yankees for the Hartford Courant for five years starting in 1983 and was a columnist for The New York Times from 1991-98 and The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1998-2007. Smith was given a standing ovation when her election was announced Tuesday at a Baseball Writers' Association of America meeting, and she asked the other half dozen women in the room to stand alongside her as she spoke. More...