John Kuenster devoted most of his life to baseball, first as a sportswriter for the Chicago Daily News and later as the editor of Baseball Digest in Evanston.
Mr. Kuenster, 87, died of cardiac arrest Monday at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park. He was a longtime resident of Evergreen Park.
During his career as a beat writer, Mr. Kuenster was on the job nearly every day during the six-month regular season, and for six weeks in spring training.
The old school reporters traveled on trains with players and got to know them personally. White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said they were instrumental in building up the popularity of the game.
"John, along with others like the great Jerome Holtzman, belonged to a different generation of sportswriters," Reinsdorf said. "Because of their love of baseball and devotion to covering the game, these writers helped generate the mass appeal of Major League Baseball."
Mr. Kuenster always did his homework, and did not take any guff from players, whether they were stars or journeymen. He knew Mickey Mantle's idol was Stan Musial, so when Mantle once blew him off for an interview, Kuenster said aloud in the clubhouse: "Well, Stan Musial would've never done that." Mantle sheepishly apologized and gave Kuenster the interview he sought.
Mr. Kuenster began writing about baseball for the Daily News in 1957, just before Holtzman, an eventual Baseball Hall of Fame writer for the Sun-Times and Tribune.
"He would always tease Jerome, (saying) 'I'm the real 'Dean,'" said his son, Bob Kuenster. "Mostly he was just a great reporter who truly loved his job and loved the game."
Mr. Kuenster was still an active member of the Chicago chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
In what turned out to be his final column, in the April edition of Baseball Digest, Mr. Kuenster reminisced about his first spring training as a baseball writer in 1957. After watching his 9-year-old daughter crying as he left his house, Kuenster asked himself why he was leaving his family for six weeks "just to fulfill my own dream of writing about baseball." He then answered his own question, writing he was fortunate to have eight children and still "be able to live that dream completely and watch, meet and interview some of the greatest ballplayers in major league history."
Kuenster also wrote or co-wrote several books, including "To Sleep with the Angels," chronicling the story of the fire at Chicago's Our Lady of the Angels elementary school in 1958 that took the lives of 92 children and three nuns. He's a member of the Mount Carmel High School Hall of Fame.
Mr. Kuenster also is survived by his wife, Suely "Sue"; daughters Kathy Mulcahy, Lois Fitzmaurice, Gina Heinichen, Peggy Murphy, and Mary Frances Jarema; sons James and Kevin Kuenster; two brothers, 20 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren.
Visitation is 2 to 9 p.m. Monday at Thompson & Kuenster Funeral Home, 5570 W. 95th St., Oak Lawn. The funeral mass will be at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at Most Holy Redeemer Church, Evergreen Park
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