The sad news arrived today that baseball writer Gene Carney has died. Gene had published his newsletter, Notes from the Shadows of Cooperstown, here at the Baseball Archive since 1998. It started in the early 90s as a printed newsletter that he mailed out to fellow baseball fans, and over the years he developed quite a following. His research on the Black Sox scandal was first documented in the pages of Notes, and it eventually coalesced into the classic book Burying the Black Sox.

Gene’s daughter, Mary, sent an email this morning to break the news. Gene had been vacationing in Alaska, with his wife and two friends, when he passed away in his sleep. For those of you who live in Upstate New York, memorial arrangements haven’t been made yet, but Mary says they’ll be announced in the Utica Observer Dispatch soon.

Gene was an intrepid researcher and a fantastic writer, but more than anything his baseball work created friendships, and it’s in that capacity that he will be most missed. I wanted to post this note here for those of his readers who might not have heard the news.

— Sean Lahman (sean @ baseball1.com)