Biking Club in front of Grant's Tomb

The Bill Shannon Biographical Dictionary of New York Sports was begun in 1998 by the late Bill Shannon (1941-2010), a New York sports executive and historian, author, and official scorer for Major League Baseball for over 30 years. It was intended to be issued as a publication of the New York Sports Museum & Hall of Fame, which he founded. His publication plans, as well as the Museum’s development, ended with Shannon’s untimely passing just before the 2010 World Series, but the Dictionary has found a home on the website of the New-York Historical Society for researchers and fans to enjoy. Bill Shannon’s Dictionary includes more than 1,750 brief biographies of individuals who have had a significant impact on New York sports history, from athletes to coaches, game officials and executives to broadcasters to publicity agents, and everyone in between, at the amateur, collegiate, and professional (but not scholastic) levels.

We encourage submissions to add to, update and correct this Dictionary (last revised in 2006), conceiving of it as a living document that will help preserve the history of sports in the metropolitan New York area (defined as within 75 miles of Manhattan). If you are interested in the list of persons Bill Shannon intended to write biographies for, but never got to, please go here for the complete list.

People interested in submitting new entries for consideration should first contact the guest editors, Jordan Sprechman and Marty Appel through this website, about the person they would like to profile. Once approved, submissions should be prepared in the prevailing format, limited to 250 words, and sourced. While in all cases contributors whose submissions are included will be acknowledged, the editors reserve the right, on behalf of the New-York Historical Society, to edit the submissions.