The National's 20th birthday!

Here's a copy of an e-mail I received this morning...hadn't realized it's been 20 years....

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I want to say after 20 years of following your career thank you.
I know that The National Sports Daily began today 20 years ago and so many thoughts went through my mind as I walked to the bus stop on a cold day like today
hoping that the vending machine at the bus stop would have the paper. The Patrick Ewing adorned cover was in that vending machine and 20 years later I have just
picked up 2 of those yellow vending machines from a former distributor and all but 27 issues of the entire run. As a tribute to the National I will pay a tribute over the
next 18 months daily of the great stories and a reflection on many of the writers then and where they are now.
Thank you so much for giving back to the community and keep up the great work.

Forever National
Miguel Rodriguez

 

It was an amazing product. Great talent. Innovative concepts. Loved Chad's column. But it was almost a newspaper FOR sportswriters, as much BY them.

Still, it was a worthwhile venture. Forged several friendships back then, when guys went from Point A to Point B to work for The National.

Those were some heady times, to be sure.

Except that when it under, in '91, during a recession, I was outta work in NYC.

Thanks for passing along, Brother Kindred.

 

I talked to them briefly about an editing job back at the time. But I was in California with young kids, and I think they sensed my hesitancy from the get-go, so it really didn't go very far. Obviously, things worked out for me, but boy, that would have been fun. Had I been single, I probably would have taken a flier had an offer been made.

Given all the great things they did, this is probably kind of odd, but the column I'll always remember is a sad one: Ostler's column about Shelby Strother.

 

For want of a legit business plan -- and a
intellectual respect for the advertising side -- the horse was lost.

 

Or guys who wanted to be sport writers. My dad would bring this home from work at night, and I would devour the agate for days. I remember one of my teammates in football used to wear a yellow National T-shirt under his pads. He was kind of a meat head, but I remember saying how much he enjoyed it and was bummed when it went under. I think his family might have gotten delivered to their home.

 

It made USA Today better, as we felt the heat of needing to compete with what they were doing.

Just years ahead of its time ... or, maybe, it was already too late.

 

If reformed as a website with a $7 or a $10 a month subscription, it could work today.

It would be a sports website with great writing and no bias. No Favre for 10 hours every week. No East Coast bias. No pandering to the league that the network televises.

I think it was ahead of its time.

 

I'd like to see someone with some money give that theory a shot. Would sure be interesting.

 

The National was the only thing that allowed me to cling by my fingertips to the Cool Kid Cliff. I'd buy it on the way to school and the cool kids would let me sit at their lunch table as we all devoured it. I'd do the crossword during my seventh period history class. The night after Hank Gathers died, I drove around town (or, I think, had my Mom drive me around town) to get as many copies as I could

The National folded during my last week of high school, right before or after the senior yearbook was released with my goal: "To one day edit The National." Boy I should have taken that fucking hint.

I've still got a bunch of copies at my Dad's and will have to dig them out next time I'm visiting him.

 

I'd subscribe.

 

ESPN's current business model is actually creating the potential for competition. You could say they jumped the shark when they resigned with the NBA and started a new contract with the NFL and thus started pandering and promoting their own events, pushing the NHL, Royals, Kings, Brewers and the like to the back, back burner.

 

I never got to see but one copy of The National because I lived in an area where you couldn't get it. What I saw, I liked. Too bad it didn't work.
As for ESPN, its baseball highlights show should be called Northeast Baseball Tonight. I loved how last year, when Heath Bell called them out for favoring the Yankees, Red Sox, etc., how Karl Ravech interviewed him after a win over the Mets and Bell had him backpedaling faster than a defender trying to stop the ball at the other foul line. Pretty epic stuff.