Current Chapter

Rick Hummel – St. Louis Post-Dispatch (member since 1976)

Derrick Goold – St. Louis Post-Dispatch (member since 2005)

Derrick Goold is an award-winning reporter and baseball writer who has covered the Cardinals for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch since 2004. He was elevated to lead Cardinals beat writer in 2012. Goold was elected Vice President of the BBWAA in 2015 and served as President of the writers’ association in 2016.

Goold has been a contributor to Baseball America since 2005 and has written for numerous national magazines and several collections. He writes one of the first and most widely read newspaper-based baseball blogs, “Bird Land” on stltoday.com, is a frequent contributor to local radio shows and MLB Network, and is the host/producer of “The Best Podcast in Baseball.” Goold is one of the best in the business at balancing the traditional requirements of sports journalism with the around-the-clock contemporary multi-media (print + video, radio, social media) demands.

Goold, who grew up in Colorado, previously covered LSU football, baseball and women’s basketball at The Times-Picayune in New Orleans (’97-’00) and covered the Nuggets, Avalanche, and Rockies for The Rocky Mountain News (’00-’01).

Goold is a graduate of the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism and recipient of the Jack Buck Scholarship which is funded by the St. Louis BBWAA Foundation. Goold lives in St. Louis with his wife Erika and son Ian and is the author of “100 Things Cardinals Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die” (2010, 2012).

Twitter: @dgoold
Facebook: Derrick Goold’s Bird Land
Daily Column: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/birdland/

Myron Holtzman – Honorary Lifetime BBWAA Member

Myron Holtzman, a longtime sportswriter and member of the BBWAA, is the former sports editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. After the newspaper ceased publication, Holtzman worked for the Sporting News and for the Associated Press. In 1993, he joined Anheuser-Busch as publications manager for the St. Louis Cardinals, editing and designing the Cardinals Magazine (later Gameday Magazine) in addition to the Cardinals’ yearbook. Before retiring from the brewery in 2004, he also worked in the PR department and contributed his editorial skills to several publications.

Holtzman is now a freelance communications specialist, editing and writing books, newsletters, and articles for various publications. He ended a 12-year stint as chairman of the St. Louis Baseball Writers’ Dinner Committee in 2020 and currently serves as PR director for the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame. He
co-authored “The Cardinals of Cooperstown (2014),” which is in its second printing.  Holtzman has been honored with inductions into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame, and the St. Louis Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

Steve Gietschier – Honorary Lifetime BBWAA Member

Gietschier is a member of the BBWAA by virtue of his 22-year stint at The Sporting News. He joined TSN as their Director of Historical Records in 1986. He converted a “100-year-old” chaotic collection of books, periodicals, photographs, index cards, clippings, and a variety of other materials and media into the Sporting News Research Center, one of the outstanding sport-special libraries, especially baseball, in the United States. He also wrote the annual “Year in Review” essay in the Baseball Guide and edited the Complete Baseball Record Book for six years. He left TSN in 2008 when the company moved its editorial offices from St. Louis to Charlotte, NC, and closed the Research Center. 

Gietschier joined the BBWAA in 1987 and moved to “Lifetime” status in 2009. He has been an active member of SABR since 1987 and is on the editorial board of NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture. He also rejoined The Sporting News in 2021 as a consultant.

Gietschier is the 2020 recipient of the prestigious McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award for his paper, “Before We Forget: The Birth, Life, and Death of The Sporting News Research Center,” published in the Spring 2020 edition of the SABR Baseball Research Journal. Coincidentally, Gietscheir is the creator of the award on behalf of SABR. He is also the editor of a collection of essays, Replays, Rivalries, and Rumbles: The Most Iconic Moments in American Sports, published by the University of Illinois Press.

Twitter: @SGietschier

Jen Langosch – MLB.com (member since 2016)

As the first female to cover the Cardinals full-time, Langosch was a history-maker. She served as the Cardinals beat writer for MLB.com from 2012-19 after covering the Pirates for MLB.com from 2007-2011. Langosch moved from the beat to the editorial desk and is now MLB.com’s Executive Editor, National League, a position that has her supervising more than a dozen MLB.com reporters and assisting with MLB’s content strategy. 

Langosch was a frequent contributor to Cardinals Magazine and previously served as a Cardinals correspondent on MLB Network and 101ESPN radio in St. Louis. 

Langosch is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia Gannett School of Journalism where she covered various high school and collegiate beats for the Columbia Missourian, Springfield News-Leader, and Inside Mizzou Magazine. She was the National Hearst Award winner in sports writing in 2006 and is a Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence National Award Winner.

Twitter: @LangoschMLB

Joe Ostermeier, Chapter Chair – Honorary Lifetime BBWAA Member

Ostermeier has been a member of the BBWAA since 1991 and has written about the Cardinals for the Belleville News-Democrat for over three decades. He has been chairman of the St. Louis Chapter of the BBWAA for many years and is a guiding and influential member of the committee that plans the Writers’ Dinner annually.

In 2014, Ostermeier was honored with first-place sports column awards in Illinois from the Associated Press and Illinois Press Association.

Twitter: @joeostermeier

Rob Rains – StLSportsPage.com (member since 1982)

Rains has been writing about sports in St. Louis and nationally for more than 30 years. He is now operating a website covering all St. Louis sports, stlsportspage.com. Rains is a former Cardinals beat writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and covered the National League for USA Today Baseball Weekly. He is a lifetime member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, joining the BBWAA in 1979 and is a former adjunct professor in the school of communications at Webster University. In 2017, Rains was honored with induction into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. Rains’ wife, Sally, was inducted into the St. Louis Media Foundation Hall of Fame in 2018.

Rains is the author of 33 books, including his latest, “All Roads Lead to St. Louis, a guide to the Cardinals and their minor league teams.” Among his other books are biographies or autobiographies of Jack Buck, Tony La Russa, Mark McGwire, and Ozzie Smith.

Twitter: @RobRains
Facebook: StL Sports Page
Website: http://StLSportsPage.com

Ben Frederickson – St. Louis Post-Dispatch (member since 2016)

Ben Frederickson returned to the Post-Dispatch as an online sports reporter and columnist in August, 2015. After interning at the Post-Dispatch in 2011, Frederickson covered the Wyoming Cowboys for the Casper Star-Tribune, was a regional writer for Fox Sports Midwest covering St. Louis market professional teams and covered the Tennessee Volunteers for the Knoxville News Sentinel. Frederickson is a 2012 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. Frederickson is originally from Sedalia, Mo.

Frederickson is the first Rick Hummel intern to be hired by the Post-Dispatch, full-time.

Twitter: @BenFred

Benjamin Hochman – St. Louis Post-Dispatch (member since 2014)

Benjamin Hochman returned to his hometown as the sports columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in September, 2015. Prior to the Post-Dispatch, he served in the same capacity for The Denver Post. He also was a beat writer for the Post covering the NBA’s Nuggets.

Hochman has finished among the top 10 in The Associated Press Sports Editors’ (APSE) national sports writing awards numerous times. In 2015, after only his first full year as a sports columnist at The Post, he finished in the APSE’s top 10 for column writing.

Hochman previously worked for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and wrote the Katrina-themed book “Fourth and New Orleans,” published in 2007.

A graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, Hochman has covered numerous major sporting events, including the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the BCS Championship Game and the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Twitter: @hochman

Ryan Fagan – The Sporting News (member since 2007)

Ryan Fagan, the National Baseball Writer for TSN, has been with the venerable outlet since 2005 and a BBWAA member since 2007. Fagen has voted for the Baseball Hall of Fame four times and still finds it hard to believe he’s lucky enough to have a say in who winds up in the hallowed halls of Cooperstown.

A St. Louis native, writing about baseball for The Sporting News — the publication founded in St. Louis back in 1886 — was one of his childhood dreams. He’s done a little bit of everything during his tenure, starting as an assistant editor on the magazine and working his way into concurrent roles as both a national baseball writer and a national college hoops writer. After a decade or so in Charlotte — he followed when TSN shifted its home office to North Carolina in 2008 and was part of the Atlanta BBWAA chapter — Fagan moved back to St. Louis with his wife and daughter in October 2019 to once again be in a baseball town to anchor SN’s MLB coverage.

Fagan’s a graduate of St. Charles High, worked for the Suburban Journals after his undergraduate years at SBU in Bolivar, Mo. After five years at the Journals, he went back to grad school at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, when the Sporting News came calling in October 2005.

Twitter: @ryanfagan
Facebook: @byRyanFagan
Website: http://sportingnews.com/us/author/7-ryan-fagan

Warren Mayes – Associated Press (member since 1997)

Warren Mayes covered the Kansas City Royals for the Springfield News-Leader from 1980 to 1984. As a sportswriter for United Press International and as sports editor of the Alton Telegraph, he covered the St. Louis Cardinals from 1984 through 2001. As a free-lancer for the Belleville News Democrat, Associated Press and West Newsmagazine in St. Louis County, he continues to write about the Cardinals.

Tom Timmermann – St. Louis Post Dispatch (member since 2007)

Tom Timmermann, not to be confused with the former major-league pitcher of the same name, has been covering baseball for the Post-Dispatch since 1997. In addition to his baseball duties, Timmermann covers the St. Louis Blues and international and local soccer.

Timmermann has also covered St. Louis University basketball during the Rick Majerus era, University of Missouri football, overseen the copy desk, served as prep editor, written columns and covered horse racing and boxing, not to mention writing about rodeo, trampolining, ticket scalping and squash. He hardly ever has written about the NFL.

In 1999, he was honored by the Missouri Press Association for the best sports feature story. He has covered five World Cups, four World Series, four world title boxing matches, two Final Fours, two Kentucky Derbies, two Belmont Stakeses, one Stanley Cup Final and one America’s Cup.

Timmermann came to the Post-Dispatch in 1996 after a lifetime in Southern California, where he graduated from UCLA and went on to work at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and the Los Angeles Daily News, where he covered USC football and basketball for three seasons before becoming first the assistant sports editor and then the deputy sports editor.

As for his baseball namesake, who pitched for the Tigers and the Indians in the 1970s, they are related but no one has been able to figure out exactly how. They have met on several occasions.

Twitter: @tomtimm

Jeff Jones – Belleville News-Democrat (member since 2019)

Jeff Jones has been covering the Cardinals since 2017 and currently contributes to the Belleville News-Democrat.

A Belleville native, Jones began his career covering the NHL in Washington, DC before moving home and back to the Cardinals beat. His work has also been published by the Associated Press, MLB.com and Sports Illustrated.

Twitter: @JmJones

Katie Woo – The Athletic (member since 2021)

As the third female in team history to cover the Cardinals full-time, Katie Woo is the Cardinals beat writer for the online sports media site, The Athletic. Woo began her coverage of the club in 2021.

After graduating from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University in 2018, Katie spent three years with MLB Advanced Media before joining The Athletic. She served as an associate reporter covering the San Diego Padres in 2018 and spent the 2019 and 2020 seasons covering the minor leagues with an emphasis on top minor league prospects.

Originally from northern California, Katie follows Jenifer Langosch and Anne Rogers as the third woman in team history to cover the Cardinals full-time. She became a member of the St. Louis BBWAA chapter shortly after joining the Cardinals beat and also serves as a Cardinals correspondent on ESPN101 Radio in St. Louis. 

Twitter: @katiejwoo

Website: https://theathletic.com/author/katie-woo/

Brenden Schaeffer – KMOV.com (member since 2020)

Brenden Schaeffer has covered the Cardinals since 2016 and has served as the lead baseball writer for KMOV since 2018.

Schaeffer began his sports writing career in Columbia, MO by covering local prep and collegiate sports for the Columbia Daily Tribune while attending the University of Missouri. Schaeffer’s career diversified into St. Louis sports radio and began covering St. Louis Blues hockey in 2016.

Schaeffer, a graduate of Wentzville Holt High School, will always cherish the memories of covering the Blues for KMOV during the Stanley Cup run in 2019. Still, nothing beats spending a summer at the ballpark. Brenden became a BBWAA member in 2020.

Twitter: @bschaeffer12