Sid Mercer: An all but forgotten Paxton celebrity

James Sidney (Sid) Mercer was born to James H. and Laura Ann Search Mercer on August 4, 1880

in Kerr Township, Champaign County, Illinois where his father farmed.  He would become an

American sports writer who covered mostly boxing and baseball in St. Louis, Missouri and New

York City.  His knowledge of sports led him to become known as the Dean of Sport Writers.

As he grew up he attended school in nearby Paxton, Illinois.  In his late teens he moved away and

ended up in St. Louis where he began his career in newspapers as a printer's apprentice with the

St. Louis Republic.  He later wrote for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, before the St. Louis Browns

hired him as their road secretary in 1906. The following year, Mercer was hired at the New York

Evening Globe. He later wrote for the New York Evening Journal and Hearst's American (later

known as the New York Journal American). 

He quickly became a name in sports writing in New York City.  When the Baseball Writers
Association of America was founded in 1908, Mercer was a founding member. During his
career he was asked to write a history of baseball by the baseball commissioner that was
serialized and published in newspapers all across the United States.

Baseball Writers Association Founders. Sid Mercer is seated, third from the right.

A testament to Sid's place in sport is reflected in the great but sad event of Lou Gehrig's retirement

from baseball.  At Yankee Stadium in New York on  July 4, 1939 a ceremony was to honor the great

man.  The master of ceremony chosen for the event was Sid Mercer.  After many honors and speeches

Gehrig was called to speak by the crowd and those on the field but he was too overwhelmed with

emotion.  After some encouragement by the manager of the Yankee's, Joe McCarthy did Gehrig walk

over and give his “Luckiest Man” speech.

Sid Mercer with New York Mayor Jimmie Walker in 1943.

Besides baseball he was an authority and writer in other sports especially boxing as well as football

and billiards.  He knew many of the sports luminaries of the time. Especially the players, managers

and owners of sports teams in New York.  He counted many of them as his friends.

He was married to Margaret McGarr and they had two daughters, Margaret and Francis.  His daughter

Francis would go to Hollywood and act in movies and TV.

Frances Mercer, daughter of Sid and Margaret Mercer

Mercer stayed connected to his hometown roots and returned to visit there where some of his family

still lived.  In 1939 he visited Paxton for a great celebration in which it was described that the “whole

town turned out.”

He died June 19, 1945 in New York City and is buried in Glen Cemetery, Paxton, Illinois.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/62406017/james-sidney-mercer

He was awarded the J. G. Taylor Spink Award by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in
1969.

Sadly in his hometown, he is all but forgotten but for a marker in the local cemetery where he is buried
alongside other members of his family.