Bill Baab, the longtime Augusta Chronicle sportswriter and editor with the heart of an athlete and the soul of a collector, has died. He is 90 years old.
Barb served as the Chronicle’s outdoor editor for 35 years, writing a weekly column for generations of Augusta-area anglers.
Readers almost view his valuable fishing information and advice as gospel. After Barb retired in 2000, Waynesboro resident Tyron Morris first wrote a letter to The Chronicle mourning the death of “Pastor Bill.”
Belvedere Marine boss David Annis told the Chronicle at the time that it was not unusual to read about one of Baab’s popular fishing spots, only to find it packed with fishermen the next day.
Barb had helped edit the Chronicle’s sports section on and off since 2000, returning briefly as fishing editor before resigning in June 2022 at the age of 87. Generations of colleagues admired his wit (though not always his puns) and his encyclopedic knowledge of local history.
Barb is also a collector, a recognized “collector rat” who grew up stimulating his curiosity about the world through an immersive accumulation of coins, stamps, books, and more. At age 14, he won first prize at an Augusta YMCA hobby show for his seashell collection.
Barb’s collection includes unusual pets. According to a 1955 Chronicle feature on Barb’s hobby, his 15-pound gopher tortoise, Goliath, followed his sisters to the mailbox every day. This article was published shortly after he began working as a copywriter for the paper.
Beginning around 1969, his collector’s eye turned to antique bottles, especially those from Augusta-area dairies, pharmacies and breweries, which revealed small chapters of local history. In 2007, he wrote and published the book “Augusta Glass Bottle,” which tells the history of the city through the evolution of the glass bottle.
In 2014, he and his surviving wife, Bea, donated their collection of 514 wine bottles to the Augusta Historical Museum. Visitors can still visit the museum’s “Barb’s Bottle” exhibit.
William Henry Baab Jr. was born in Pennsylvania and moved his family to a modest house on Heath Street in Augusta’s Summerville neighborhood in 1940.
He graduated from Catholic Boys High School in 1953 and served in the U.S. Navy before returning to Augusta in 1955. By 1957 he was a member of the Chronicle’s writing staff, covering general sports, writing book reviews, and writing the weekly rowing column.
He briefly left newspapers, first working in public relations for what was then the Georgia Game and Fish Commission, then in 1961 as sports editor of the Thomasville Times-Enterprise in south Georgia.
In 1964, Barb rejoined the Chronicle as outdoor editor.
Funeral arrangements are being finalized at Thomas Poteet & Sons Funeral Home on Davis Road.
The accumulation of years: After 60 years in journalism, fishing editor Bill Baab calls it quits
This article originally appeared in the Augusta Chronicle: Augusta outdoor reporter Bill Baab reveled in local nature and history