Bill Shirley, Former Times’ Sports Editor, Dies

Bill Shirley, former sports editor of The Times, died Wednesday of a heart attack while on a pleasure cruise with his wife along the east coast of South America.

Shirley, 71, retired in 1986 after a career of more than 45 years in newspapers, including a period from 1964 to 1981 as head of The Times’ sports department.

His final five years with The Times were spent as a sports correspondent, during which time he traveled to China, East Germany, Cuba and the Soviet Union for background stories on sports programs in those countries.

“Bill Shirley brought a whole new breed of writing talent to the sports section of The Times in the late 1970s, when he hired the likes of Mike Littwin, Mark Heisler, Richard Hoffer, Scott Ostler, Ted Green, Skip Bayless and others,” Times sports editor Bill Dwyre said.

“They gave the section a distinctive literary flavor that I hope is retained today.”

In 1979, The Times’ sports section edited by Shirley was named, along with the Boston Globe, as the best in the country by Time magazine. Shirley also served as first vice president of the Golf Writers Assn. of America during a career in which he covered golf, including annual trips to the Masters and U.S. Open.

Before Shirley began work at The Times in 1948, he worked at newspapers in San Diego, Nashville, Tenn., and his native Little Rock, Ark. He also played professional baseball as an infielder with the Little Rock team of the Southern Assn. in 1942.

He has lived since last year in Rancho Bernardo.

Shirley is survived by his wife, Katherine; two daughters, Elizabeth Bagby of Encinitas and Suzanne Shirley Hovdey of Laguna Niguel; two grandsons, Jeff Bagby, 19, and Edward Hovdey, 9, and a sister, Winifred Moore of Riverside.