Al Cartwright
American sports writer
Albert Thomas Cartwright (June 20, 1917 – May 10, 2015) was an American sportswriter. He spent 1947 to 1968, then 1971 to 1983, working with The News Journal and its predecessors, winning awards for his "A La Carte" columns.
Sportswriting career
He started his career at the age of 15, writing articles without pay for The Reading Times. Following his graduation from Reading High School (Pennsylvania) in 1935, Cartwright was hired by The Reading Times as a paid staff member. Cartwright worked with The Times until 1943, when he went to The Dayton Herald as an assistant sports editor. He worked seven months with Dayton until entering the Navy in World War II. While in the Navy, he served in the public relations office at the United States Naval Training Center Bainbridge in Maryland. After sixteen months, he was discharged. He was subsequently hired by The Philadelphia Record in 1945. When it went out of business in 1947, he was then hired by The Evening Journal. He was widely known for his "humor, stylish prose, and diligent reporting", having multiple stories appear in the annual "Best Sports Stories" publications.
The public source identifies “Al Cartwright” as american sports writer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Cartwright, American and sports.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Al Cartwright”, the useful work is to connect “american sports writer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q107608318. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1917, 2015, 1947 and 1968.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Al Cartwright”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Al Cartwright primary sources, Al Cartwright archive and Cartwright research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Al Cartwright”?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Al Cartwright” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.