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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted at 7:20 p.m., Sunday, June 25, 2006

Longtime Advertiser baseball writer, Ferd Borsch, dies

Advertiser Staff

Ferd Borsch, Hawai'i's foremost baseball writer and a 40-year veteran of The Honolulu Advertiser, died today at age 77 after a lengthy illness.

He was the only beat writer The Advertiser had for the 27-year run of the Hawaii Islanders, covering all 2,013 home games in the club's (1961-1987) existence.

"Ferdinand was much loved and respected by everyone and we will miss him dearly," said Curtis Murayama, Advertiser sports editor. "We all know that he loved baseball, but what he loved more was his family. Our hearts go out to them. He was one of a kind."

Borsch wrote about a wide range of sports from auto racing to yachting in his half-century newspaper career, but any day spent "at the ol' ballyard" as he fondly termed it, was his passion.

Before coming to The Advertiser in 1961 he covered the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League for the Portland Oregonian and Portland Reporter.

After the demise of the Islanders, he wrote about University of Hawai'i, high school, Hawaii Winter League and youth league baseball until he went on medical leave in 2001.

He was a respected reporter, serving as president of the National Association of Baseball Writers in 1977, a three-time Hawai'i sports writer of the year and an acknowledged expert on the rules and scoring of the game known throughout professional baseball.

He is survived by wife, Patti; sons, Timothy, Christopher and Brian; and a daughter, Lisa.