When I read present sports writers, they do not measure up the writers of the past, and I think that this is the reason: They rarely write about the event itself. That's pedestrian. That's for the interns and beat writers.
The writers who people regard as "great" these days (and I'll not mention them because I don't agree) feel that they have a higher calling: to tell us what an event means to us. Or worse, should mean to us. Past great sports writers, like Mark Kram and Jim Murray as well as legends Ring Lardner and Damon Runyan, established and maintained their greatness by covering great events and then let us determine the significance of it.
These men achieved greatness on typewriters and same-day deadlines, too. They did not have days and weeks to polish their work. My favorite sportswriter of all time is W.C. Heinz, and the greatest sports story of all time, in my opinion, is his Death of a Racehorse, written in less than an hour from the press box of a Baltimore-area race track. It's of a masterpiece quality that I just don't see from today's sportswriters.
http://www.bloodhorse.com/pdf/DeathofaRacehorse_Heinz.pdf
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Plus, too many writers are too concerned with making themselves part of the story, too. It's a culture of columnist as celebrity, of creating a brand for yourself.
ReplyDelete