Game On?
A sports columnist disputes Gary Cartwright’s assertion that sportswriting is dead.
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What Cowboy football fan will ever forget the first line of Cartwright’s column in the paper the day after Don Meredith threw an interception in the end zone when the Cowboys were on their opponents 1-yard line: “The Four Horsemen rode again Sunday in the Cotton Bowl. You remember their names: Death, Famine, Pestilence and Meredith.”
Gosh, I sure do miss the Geezers!
H.M. “Mac” Meredith
Hideaway Lake
I think you may need to fire whoever edited this column. To allow an article about mediocre writing to contain the tired cliche “Nobody under fifty reads newspapers anymore” means either someone wasn’t paying attention or has a very well-honed sense of irony.
Dan Ford
Washington, D.C.
I have a deep respect for all sports enthusiasts, because I’m a guy who checks ESPN.com daily, watches SportsCenter two times in a row at night, and listens to the Ticket during my work commute, only to retain three or four stats and a few notable plays.
I tell you about my bad memory for daily sports events because each day’s game scores are not what I like. What I love are the scores of blogs that sports comedians keep. Sure, those writers may not be based in Texas, but I only lose so much Texas pride by enjoying non-Texans’ hilarious rants and raves. I’d like to tell you about some sportswriters to whom I can relate. (As a side note, I’m a college-educated 24-year-old employee of a Big Four accounting firm; I plan on leaving the field in a year or so in order to follow my dream of, get this, working somewhere in a more creative area. But I tell you this information because I feel my demographic and aspirations represent the group and kind that a lot of newspapers would like to make into subscription holders, if not for a love of the sports section, then due to a love for the arts reviews.)
So sportswriters.
Take, for instance, BarstoolSports.com. I dislike Bostonites just as much as the next resident of other big cities, but those guys are usually pretty damn funny. And I realize there’s a lot of non-sports-related crud on the site, but that only enhances the experience. After all, I’m a guy; I appreciate some ridiculously chauvinistic blog posts. (I refuse to believe that any fabled sportswriters of the fifties and sixties were upstanding to the point that they didn’t regularly comment on a nearby and/or famous woman’s physical assets.)
Another example of hilarious sportswriting is the product of Bill Simmons. Granted it doesn’t help my cause that he’s also a Bostonite, but that guy is undeniably funny. If you haven’t already, read his recounting of any recent NBA All-Star weekend.
Now for some advice I received from a Kentucky native: Read the comments that are posted after any sports article containing the slightest bit of controversy. Some of my friends’ favorites follow any Dallas Cowboys article. That’s where DFW’s intellectuals really come out to play. And it’s on the comments pages where regular Joes have the opportunity to release their anger, humor, or otherwise know-it-all opinions.
And now, for my final point, one of which I’m sure you’re well aware: Sportswriters of the future will not necessarily earn their living solely on the sports articles they create. Although this thought may be an obvious point discussed throughout the past few years while newspapers have failed, I mean it in a different way: I’m not growing up following some stiffs who aren’t funny just because they cover my teams for their living. The guys I follow are my best friends. They’re the guys who, after all, remember teams’ records throughout the season; they know two thirds of the names of each team’s roster . . . in three major sports: baseball, football, and basketball. (They look to me, a Minnesota native, for hockey information.)
But the best part of all: They’re hilarious. We grill burgers, I bring up a player who’s on fire, and they make hilarious comments about some interview he recently gave. They comment on his personal life. They do it better than any radio windbag, any newspaper traditionalist, etc.
What I’m saying is, great sportswriters, in my mind, are my college buddies. Our chain e-mails see a lot of trash talk about each of our respective city’s teams. We go back and forth, sometimes into the wee hours of the night.
It’s not like we don’t respect the men who have sweated through covering the pitiful Texas Rangers (pitiful perhaps until this season). Or the Dallas Cowboys. Or whoever.
We’d just really like for some of these guys to start relating to a younger crowd. Start telling it like it is. Make fun of Dale Hansen every day. Every twentysomething male I know would rather hook up with a three-hundred-pound woman than listen to that guy (okay, I’m lying, but you get the point).
We must first rid our communities of the lame guys, and only after doing so will guys my age—ones who are hilarious in their own right—have a shot at being heard, be it through paper, blog, radio, or television.
Jack Britton
Dallas
I was disappointed not to see Dan Cook (one of Blackie Sherrod’s good friends) included in “Game Over.” How could you not mention a guy who was successful at two careers, sportswriting and sportscasting (for fifty-plus years)? Give him the credit he is due.
Ken Shellaby
Via e-mail
Where’s a mention of Dan Cook? Cartwright’s lament about contemporary sportswriters’ not having the entertaining style of this state’s late and great newspaper sports reporters omitted the best writer of that era. Perhaps Mr. Cartwright had no cute photo of the self-effacing humorist. Perhaps the snub was the usual for Texas Monthly.
Sadly for Texas Monthly readers, they won’t know San Antonio’s richness in contemporary journalism treasures. Dan Cook, former boxer, entertained San Antonio Express-News readers for 51 years with insight into all sporting events, especially when money was on the line. Dan was a big fan of Blackie Sherrod’s and often quoted him as well as other sportswriters. Yet Dan was more quotable. On sporting tenacity, he gave America the line “The opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings.” Readers of his column anticipated reports on luncheons with the secretive bookie Benjamin Broadhind. And always, there was serious journalism behind Dan’s good humor.
John Ramseur
Austin
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