Congradulations to Neate Sager

By day he's a mild mannered sports editor for the Simcoe Reformer in Canada. By night he's a fellow blogger at Sportspages.com. Now he's also recieved some well deserved recognition:

SIMCOE, Ontario (Dec 13, 2005) – Neate Sager was one of only two writers from Canadian periodicals recognized in the “Notable Sports Writing of 2004” in the recently released The Best American Sports Writing 2005 anthology.

Sager, the sports editor of the Simcoe Reformer was included for his Dec. 3, 2004 column “Jennings a genius? Ask him a sports question.”

Receiving even an honourable mention in The Best American Sports Writing is noteworthy, especially for a writer from a small Canadian daily.

The only other writer from a Canadian publication who received mention this year was Kevin Mitchell of the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix for his Apr. 24, 2004 piece “The Final Strikeout.”

Only two Canadian submissions were included as “Notable Sports Writing” in the Best American Sports Writing 2004. Those pieces appeared in the Toronto Star and National Post.

Sager, who was born in Napanee, Ont., has been in the daily newspaper business for three years. He worked at the Portage Daily Graphic in Portage la Prairie, Man., from 2002-2004. He became sports editor of The Simcoe Reformer in August 2004.

The Best American series has existed since 1915 and is regarded as one of the country’s top annual showcases for short fiction and non-fiction. Since 1991, it has included an annual sports writing volume edited by author and historian Glenn Stout (Red Sox Century, Yankees Century). It is open to writers from periodicals throughout the U.S. and Canada.

As series editor, Stout reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals and selects between 50 and 100 for consideration by a guest editor – someone widely regarded as a leading writer in her or his field. He or she in turn selects 20 or so of the very best pieces for that year’s volume.

Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News was guest editor for The Best American Sports Writing 2005. Previous guest editors have included Richard Ben Cramer, Richard Ford, the late Dick Schaap and Sports Illustrated’s Rick Reilly.