Washington Post sports columnist Boswell to retire after 52-year career

Longtime Washington Post sports columnist Thomas Boswell announced his retirement Friday, ending a decorated 52-year career in which he chronicled the biggest moments in Washington and national sports with enthusiasm and erudition. He will continue to write and host his weekly online chat with readers until June 30.

A D.C. native and graduate of St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes School, Boswell has spent decades in baseball clubhouses, NFL locker rooms, golf courses, boxing gyms, bowling alleys, pool halls and anywhere else the story of modern life could be told through competition. He covered 44 consecutive World Series, dozens of Masters and five Olympics. And he brought a fun-loving but insightful verve to columns about Washington’s sports triumphs and failings, from Super Bowl wins to college basketball championships, from hockey embarrassments to a Stanley Cup title, from the arrival of the Washington Nationals to their World Series victory and joyous parade.

Boswell became a Post columnist in 1984, the same year that “Why Time Begins on Opening Day,” one of his five books on baseball, was published.