Tom Keegan joins Herald
Award-winning columnist latest addition to sports staff
Boston has a new voice for sports.
Tom Keegan, an award-winning columnist, editor and radio personality who has plied his trade in the Los Angeles, Chicago and New York markets, will join the Herald as sports columnist covering Boston’s championship-winning teams beginning Monday.
“Toughest teams on the planet, liveliest sportswriters and most colorful sports nuts in the country. Cool city,” Keegan said about Boston — to which he has family ties. “My trips to Fenway Park felt more like I was covering an event than a game. Wild intensity. Good times. Can’t wait to resume writing for the back page.”
“Tom is a well respected journalist with a wealth of knowledge across all sports, and he has experience in several major media markets,” Herald sports editor Justin Pelletier said. “He has several ties to Boston, he understands how passionate the fan base is here, and he knows how fervently we follow our teams. Tom is a great writer, and a great person, and he will make a great addition to our team, and to the Boston media landscape.”
Keegan began his career at the Orange County Register, where he stayed for eight years. As a beat writer, he covered the Dodgers’ run to the World Series in 1988.
He began work for the National out of Chicago in 1989, and he covered the first three Bulls titles with Michael Jordan.
In 1994, Keegan covered the Orioles for the Baltimore Sun, and then spent seven years, through 2002, as a baseball columnist for the New York Post. For three years thereafter, he was co-host of “Wally and the Keeg” on ESPN Radio in New York City. Among his many interview subjects there were now-President Donald Trump, Sen. John McCain and Liza Minnelli.
“In a column about how there is nothing I hate worse than a namedropper, I dropped that I had shaken the hands of Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Pope John Paul II, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Joe DiMaggio, Pete Rose, Perry Como, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, George H.W. Bush and Jayne Seymour,” Keegan says. “As has O.J. Simpson, I have spent a lot of time on golf courses looking for the real killer.”
Most recently, Keegan was sports editor and columnist for the Lawrence (Kansas) Journal-World.
Keegan is no stranger to Boston. His brother was a standout athlete at Boston College, his sister lives in Watertown and his son attended college in the Boston area.
Born in Rochester, N.Y., Keegan is the seventh of 10 children. He graduated from Marquette University in 1981. He spent a year abroad as a junior, where he met his wife, Angie. They have three sons and a daughter.
Keegan’s columns will begin appearing in the Herald next week. You can find him on Twitter now at @TomKeeganLJW.