Longtime Bowling Writer Snyder Dies

Don Snyder, 75, a Los Angeles Times sportswriter for 48 years, died Saturday night at Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale after a heart attack. He had emphysema.

Snyder began writing for The Times around the same time Ted Williams batted .406 for the Boston Red Sox in 1941.

Times auto racing writer Shav Glick, who worked at the Pasadena Star-News when Snyder started at The Times, said Snyder was a general assignment reporter who also covered local college football and track and field, but that bowling was his specialty.

His enthusiasm for the sport was evident in his writing. He received several awards from the Bowling Writers Assn. of America, including one for meritorious service to bowling in 1988.

In 1991, after being elected president of the Bowling Writers Assn. of America, he was named bowling writer of the year. The Southern California Bowling Writers Assn. named one of their annual awards for Snyder. Appropriately, it was for lifetime dedication to bowling.

He is survived by his wife, Celeste, and two daughters, Donna and Paula. A funeral Mass will be said Friday at St. James Catholic Church, 4635 Dunsmore Ave., in La Crescenta.