Veteran Arkansas newspaper sportswriter Jim Bailey dies

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Longtime Arkansas sportswriter Jim Bailey has died.

His son Bob Bailey tells the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that his father died Wednesday night at his home in Little Rock. He was 86.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

Bailey covered sports for newspapers in Arkansas for more than half a century. He wrote about the Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference, the Arkansas Travelers minor league baseball team and boxing for the Arkansas Gazette from 1956 until the newspaper closed in 1991. He then worked for the Arkansas Times and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette before retiring in 2013.

He had suffered from Alzheimer's disease since 2008.

Bailey was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2003. He wrote or co-wrote several books on Arkansas sports, including longtime Arkansas Razorbacks coach and athletic director Frank Broyles' autobiography.

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Information from: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, http://www.arkansasonline.com