Si Burick

Who was Si Burick?

Simon "Si" Burick was a sports editor and featured columnist for the Dayton Daily News for 58 years. Burick received the J. G. Taylor Spink Award on July 23, 1983, and was inducted into the writers section of the Baseball Hall of Fame. He is the first writer from a city without a Major League baseball team to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Burick was an Ohio radio personality as early as 1935, when he became WHIO’s first sportscaster. His daily 15-minute programs aired until 1961. Burick also hosted the Cincinnati Reds pre-game show before home games. In 1949, when WHIO-TV went on the air, Burick was one of its featured personalities and continued to be so for ten years.

In 1986, Burick was honored by the National College Football Hall of Fame and the Associated Press Sports Editors, who awarded him the Red Smith Award, considered the most prestigious sports writing honor in the United States.

Burick authored three books, Alston and the Dodgers in 1966, The Main Spark, a biography of Sparky Anderson, in 1978, and Byline, a collection of his columns, in 1982.