Journalist Peter Gammons is expected to receive Baseball America’s Lifetime Achievement Award Tuesday at the network’s annual banquet held at baseball’s winter meetings.

Before Gammons, other big-name celebrities received this award including Frank Robinson, John Schuerholz, and Buck O’Neil. But Gammons is also listed in Baseball America’s ranking of the 25 most influential people in sports over the past 25 years, along with such high-profile personalities as Bud Selig, Donald Fehr, Sandy Alderson, Bill James, Pat Gillick and Sandy. Alderson.

Whether at the Boston Globe, Sports Illustrated or ESPN, Gammons’ 36-year career has been one of innovation. He is the inventor of the weekend bundle of notes in his Sunday columns for the Globe. Gammons was also the first to introduce the diary as part of rhythm coverage and to popularize trade rumor reporting, which can now be seen in the form of “Rumor Central” features on most major sports websites. Eventually, he had his own way of presenting sports news by incorporating more highlights and engaging with his readers by using references to music and pop culture that had no place on a sports page before him.

The journalist has been elected National Sportswriter of the Year three times in 1989, 1990 and 1993 by the National Association of Sportswriters and Sportswriters. He also received the JG Taylor Spink Award which earned him a seat in the writers’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, in 2004.

This year, Baseball America decided to honor Gammons among sixteen other personalities. Other honorees include Detroit’s David Dombrowski for Executive of the Year, Jim Leyland for Manager of the Year, Minnesota’s Johan Santana for Player of the Year and Cincinnati Reds outfielder Ken Griffey Jr, also a Lifetime Achievement Award winner.

In recent years, Baseball America has made donations in excess of $35,000 to MLB Charities for youth baseball programs in disadvantaged areas through the RBI program. For example, donations raised last year helped the New Orleans Zephyrs rebuild the only baseball field available to the children of New Orleans. As for this year, donations will go toward scholarships for African-American baseball prospects to help them in their efforts to attend college camps, clinics, tournaments and programs.