Seven Sportswriters Who

To paraphrase William Gaddis, every sports writer in America climbed out of Ring Lardner's vest pocket.

At a time when newspaper writing generally, and sports writing specifically, were still purple with 19th century Victorian literary constructions, Lardner was a bracing shot of wised-up American modernism.

Hugely influential. Without Lardner you might not have got Hemingway.

Lardner is father to us all.

 

There's at least one Cannon collection available.

"Nobody Asked Me But . . ."

You can probably find it at the library.

Lipsyte writes a little about Cannon in his book, 'Sports World.'

Here are a couple loosies to tide you over.

The Best Things Are the Nicest | Esquire | SEPTEMBER, 1948

www.bronxbanterblog.com/tag/jimmy-cannon/

 

I believe Mr. Halberstam was a mentor to Howard.

 

Five pages in and no love for DeFord?

 

Fifth post.

First ballot Hall of Fame, of course.

But the premise of the thread is the 7 with the "greatest impact," and I'm not sure what to with Mr. Deford in that regard.

 

We're talking impact, so that's DeFord and Reilly. And they'd be unanimous like Mariano.

 

I'm going to defend the case of Posnaski: For long form writing. It may be blasphemous, but I'd take him over Gary Smith or Montville.
I don't know how "impactful" Pos was/is, but for my money he's among the best. Ever.
And I would take Reilly off my list. There is already one great, funny columnist on the list and that's Murray. Reilly was great, but he also ran out of gas and got really trite in his later years.

And it chaps my ass, anyone is even considering Simmons as far as "sportswriting" goes.

Impactful?
Peter Gammons. His Baseball Notes.
Dr. Z. 'nuff said.

 

Evil, citing Peter is excellent work. He is the father of modern baseball writing. Dr. Z is worth a mention as well. Truth is, since sportswriting started like 130 years or more ago, there have to be more than seven influentials, many more. A list of seven from differing eras, say 1900-1945, 1945-1970, 1970-2000 and 2000 to today would be closer to the truth of the trade's development.

 

You are absolutely correct that it is unfair to limit the number to seven from different eras. But the failure to force posters to make choices would lead to a less interesting thread, just as the failure of a columnist to make chocies leads to bland columns.

 

I think it is blasphemy to rate Posnaski above Smith. I may not remember enough of Posnaski's work but what I remember is that he likes stories with lots of hero's and happy endings. And he is really, really good at it. But look at the Paterno book where he wanted to write a story of a hero and seemed unsure how to handle the Sandusky scandal.

With Smith I never know what way he will take a story. Do you have any idea how a book by Smith on Paterno would have read?

I don't consider Montville to be an all-timer,as good as he is.

 

Shelby Strother

 

This board has a difficult time with women. First it's Glenn Stout and his bias against women when it comes to guest editing his annual best-of book ... and don't give me that Jackie MacMullen was chosen this year because his first instinct was to go right back to a man when Jackie was unable to do it; as if there aren't 25 other prominent women who could have been the guest editor; JFC, one phone call to Jemele would have satisfied a few intersectional boxes. Fact of the matter is that 28 of the 29 guest editors were/are men.

Now ... I don't have an example of a woman whose name could be one of the "7" for the question at hand for this thread -- why not Jackie? -- but at the same time I thought some of SJ's deepest thinkers and most voracious readers and historical scholars of the genre would have weighed in with a few of the elite sportswriters of the last 25-30-50 years who happen to be women. It's funny in a not-haha way.

Is there not a single female sportswriter in our lifetime who ranks alongside DeFord and Reilly and Heinz and this guy and that guy?