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Friends, coworkers remember Galesburg sports writer/editor Joe Morrissey

Joe Morrissey with a Cubs shirt and cap, along with a trophy that proclaims him “most loyal Cubs fan” as he sits underneath a banner that used to fly over the left field foul line at Wrigley Field. The banner was replaced with Ernie Bank’s retired number the same year that Morrissey retired, and the banner was sent to him. REGISTER-MAIL FILE PHOTO

 

For more than three decades, the sports pages of The Register-Mail were the home of Joe Morrissey’s byline.

The devoted Cubs fan began his career at the paper in 1948 and edited the sports section through 1981, continuing to contribute columns long after. 

Following his death at the age of 89 last Thursday, Register-Mail Assistant Editor Jay Redfern and Sports Editor Mike Trueblood shared memories of their coworker and friend.

Redfern, who started at the paper in 1985, tells Galesburg’s Morning News on WGIL he admires the way Morrissey would dig into a story.

“The thing that I kinda took from Joe was that he went beyond the game, beyond the box score, and tried to tell the story behind the scenes” Redfern says. “Anybody can see what’s going on on the floor, but you try to talk to coaches and players and kinda get the back story. And he did that.”

Trueblood says Morrissey had serious vision problems leading up to his retirement, but that never stopped him from enjoying the games he wrote about.

“I took him to a Streaks game a year or two after he retired and he couldn’t see the scoreboard,” Trueblood says. “So I had to tell him the score all the time. He couldn’t see it, but then when there was a call on a guy stepping on the line down there in front of us, he goes, ‘Oh, he is foot was over the line!'”

In addition to writing for the paper, Morrissey authored three sports-focused books.

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