G. Smith

Wendell Smith (1914–1972) was an American sportswriter and civil rights activist based in Pittsburgh. A graduate of West Virginia State College, where he pitched on the baseball team, Smith launched his professional career in 1937 with the Pittsburgh Courier. He became a central figure in the campaign to integrate Major League Baseball, playing a direct role in Jackie Robinson becoming the first African American player in the modern major leagues. Smith was among the first African American members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America and was posthumously awarded the J. G. Taylor Spink Award by the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993.