In 1981, he became the second sportswriter to win the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. His Pulitzer citation particularly noted his work on six columns he wrote in 1980, especially one entitled "The Food On a Table At the Execution" describing the sacking of New York Yankees manager Dick Howser by owner George Steinbrenner. He was inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame in Salisbury, North Carolina in 1990, joining three other past "Sports of The Times," columnists — Red Smith, Arthur Daley and John Kieran. Anderson was the 1994 winner of the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) Red Smith Award for distinguished sports column writing. In 2005, he received the Dick Schaap Award for Outstanding Journalism. Anderson was inducted in the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2006. Anderson retired from "The Times" in 2007, though he continued to contribute occasional columns, his last being an August 2017 article on the US Tennis Open.