Arch Ward

Archie Burdette Ward (December 27, 1896 – July 9, 1955) was an American journalist who served as sports editor for the Chicago Tribune. He was the creator of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, the Golden Gloves amateur boxing tournament and the World Professional Basketball Tournament.

Biography Ward was born in 1896 in Irwin, Illinois, and attended Columbia Academy and Columbia College (now Loras College) in Dubuque, Iowa. He joined the Chicago Tribune in 1925, and became sports editor in 1930.

Ward is credited with conceiving of an All-Star Game in major-league-baseball, first contested in 1933. Ward helped set up the first meeting of the organization that would become the AAFC on June 4, 1944, with word getting out about the league in late August of that year before a formal announcement on September 2, 1944. The league lasted four seasons, with the sudden heart attack suffered by Benjamin F. Lindheimer in late 1949 (who owned three of the eight AAFC teams) being a key point of the demise of the league, with various members involved with the league saying that Ward turned the NFL into a major league in spite of itself.

Ward published several collections of light content ("notes, verses and comments") from the Chicago Tribune entitled In The Wake Of The News Book and edited an anthology called The Greatest Sports Stories From Chicago Tribune. He also was the author of three sports-related books: his death was attributed to a heart attack. His funeral took place the same day as the 1955 MLB All-Star Game. He was buried at All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines.