Wiley, Ralph

Ralph Wiley a leading sportswriter for Sports Illustrated and ESPN.com who was also a well-regarded essayist on race in America, has died. He was 52.

Wiley died Sunday night June 13, 2004 in Orlando Florida of heart failure, according to an announcement on ESPN.com. He was stricken at his home in Orlando, Fla., while preparing to watch game four of the NBA finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Detroit Pistons.

A regular commentator for ESPN's Sports Center and a columnist for ESPN.com's Page 2, Wiley started his journalism career at the Oakland Tribune after graduating from Knoxville College in Tennessee with a degree in business management. The Memphis native began as a copy boy and worked his way up to covering the city before landing on the sports desk.

He became a sports columnist for the Tribune and was credited with coining the term "Billy Ball" to describe the style of play favored by Oakland A's manager Billy Martin in the 1980s. That style was primarily about manufacturing runs through aggressive base-running that included frequent attempts to steal home. The term so well captured the phenomenon that it became the advertising theme for the A's and was on all their promotions.

Wiley moved on to Sports Illustrated in 1982 and remained there for nine years, writing more than two dozen cover stories focusing on boxing, baseball and football. He also covered the rape trial of boxer Mike Tyson. He is survived by a son and a daughter; and his mother, Dorothy Brown of Washington, D.C.