Longtime baseball writer and MASN analyst Mel Antonen died at 64 on Sunday, the Nationals confirmed.
Antonen passed away after a battle with COVID-19 as well as a rare autoimmune disease. He detailed his battle with both illnesses in June 2020.
“In 2020, I have battled two formidable foes while facing life-and-death situations: I knocked out a rare autoimmune disease that attacked my liver and gave me—at best—a 50–50 chance of survival,” Antonen wrote. “Before my treatments ended, I tested positive for COVID-19, the virus that is ravaging the United States with more than two million cases and a rising death toll that could reach 200,000 by this fall.”
“The disease and the virus were a punishing duo, which I assume was much like pitching against the 1927 Yankees with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.”
Antonen wrote for USA Today and Sports Illustrated in addition to his work with MASN. He covered the World Series for over 30 years, additionally reporting on the Olympics and various other sports. Antonen was inducted into the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.
“I love baseball because it always brings me home,” Antonen said at his induction ceremony, per the Argus Leader’s Chuck Raasch. “A baseball park in my mind is a home. It doesn’t matter if it’s next to a cornfield, as it is in Lake Norden, or if it is next to a rumbling subway, in New York.”
Antonen penned his final column for MASN in October after the Dodgers won their first World Series since 1988. You can read some of Antonen’s work with Sports Illustrated below:
Hope and Nerves for Hall Candidates Smith, Morris and Raines
Cubs Legends on What a World Series Title Would Mean to Them and the City of Chicago
