WASHINGTON — Mel Richard Antonen, family man, beloved friend and renowned sports journalist, died Saturday of a rare acute auto-immune disease and complications from COVID-19. He was 64.
Antonen was a longtime baseball reporter at USA Today and the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network who covered nearly three dozen World Series. In a half century in journalism, he reveled and excelled in telling others’ stories.
Antonen’s own story became the best of all. It began in the tiny town of Lake Norden, South Dakota, on Aug. 25, 1956, when he was the third of four children born to Ray and Valda Antonen.