that Major League Baseball designate September 30, 1948 as "Babe Ruth Day" and that all proceeds from games played on that day be donated to cancer research. Smith's 1948 tribute to Harry Heilmann, former batting champ and radio voice of the tigers, was published in The Sporting News. Smith wrote:"[H]e is so good that if he gets any better there'll be no more attendance records set at Briggs Stadium. After all, who wants to leave that nice, soft easy chair to be pushed around with 50,000 other fans when he can stay right at home and get a word picture ... with anectodes ... of the game. Only thing wrong with his broadcasts is that you hate to get out of your chair and rush to the ice box to get a bottle of that cool stuff he mentions now and then." In October 1954, Smith was elected as the vice president of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. In the spring of 1955, Smith asked readers to submit ideas for a nickname for the Tigers' star right-fielder Al Kaline. From the submissions, Smith chose "Salty," which the reader explained, "After all, salt means alkaline." In September 1955, he was elected as the president of the Baseball Writers' Association of America and served in that role in 1956. Smith also served as a director of the Football Writers Association of America for several years. Smith was chosen as the chief scorer for the 1956 World Series, and was the scorer for Don Larsen's perfect game in the World Series. Fellow sportswriter Arthur Daley noted, "By the ninth inning, the most nervous people in the ball park, bar none, were the three official scorers, Lyall Smith of Detroit and his two assistants ... They were terrified that a questionable decision would confront them and ruin Larsen's performance for posterity." Larsen, too, acknowledged that he was not the only nervous person at Yankee Stadium as the game progressed, acknowledging the scrutiny that would be given to any close calls by Smith as he sat in the press box as the official scorer. In May 1965, Smith was chosen to serve a five-year term on the board of directors of the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame. Detroit Lions In September 1965, Smith left the Free Press to accept a position as the public relations director for the Detroit Lions. In January 1967, Smith