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Baseball Hall Of Fame Reporter Back At Bat

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Now we have an update on the story of sports writer Tom Gage. He's a baseball writer who made the Hall of Fame and also lost his job.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Gage covered the Detroit Tigers for decades until The Detroit News took him off the baseball beat. He took another job and then was laid off. Though, he told our own David Greene he needed no sympathy.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

TOM GAGE: Look, don't feel sorry for me. I had 45 years of uninterrupted employment in a profession that I loved.

MONTAGNE: And shortly after his employment was interrupted, Mr. Gage went to Cooperstown, N.Y. He was honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame.

INSKEEP: And now we can report that he's back at work. The Sporting News hired Tom Gage, meaning he has returned to the job he loves.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GAGE: I changed my mind about law school because I wanted to be a journalist. The year I joined The Detroit News, the paper's baseball writer took another job. And at that fortuitous point, my pen became my bat.

INSKEEP: And with that pen in hand, Tom Gage will be trying to hit verbal home runs as he writes about the World Series. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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