Baseball's Big Three

And I'm not talking about A-Rod, Bonds and Pujols. I'm talking about Gammons, Verducci and Olney. For a split-second, I thought about turning this into a "who's better" poll, but that would an injustice to all three of them. Each of them are who each and every baseball writer would like to emulate and become, and all three of them do one particular thing better than anyone else. I ask all you SportsJournalists.com'ers, what is each scribe's specialty, IYO?

 

Good question.

If I want the breaking story, I'll go to Gammons.

If I want a really good analysis of the day's news, I'll go to Olney.

And if I want a richly detailed feature story, I'll go to Verducci.

But they're all incredibly versatile.

 

For Game 6 7 of the World Series ...

Verducci writes my feature advance.
Gammons writes my gamer on deadline.
Olney writes my folo column.

Murderers' Row.

 

And a link to a classic: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/gammons/story?id=2118859

"And all of a sudden the ball was there, like the Mystic River Bridge, suspended out in the black of the morning."

 

Gammons' specialty is the Red Sox and whatever team Jim Bowden is running.

 

Verducci writes like a guy who is on the bench. He knows the numbers (though I sometimes get lost in them) and I get the feeling he writes about what the players talk about, who's jaking it, who is killing it but not getting pub and who is on the decline. His feature on Sizemore was top-shelf. I'd love him to write more about inside the baseline stuff (unwritten rules etc.) Gammons has the GMs covered, player movement etc., Olney for the breaking stuff.

 

Both Buck's and BYH's assessments are bang on. I don't think anyone can disagree.

 

Can anyone imagine if they collaborated on a baseball book together? Would it be any good, or would it be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen?

 

I certainly can't. They summed it up for me.

 

Gammons' comeback has been pretty remarkable.

 

WHAT?!?!?!? No mention of Amalie Benjamin!?!?

(Please detect sarcasm)

 

Thing is, Tim Brown could do all three.