The best sports section ever

I certainly would never be foolish enough to argue with John Schulian, but I'd say every sports section cited in this thread was the best-ever-some days. It was a tremendous competition in the 1970s and '80s. Just look at the names mentioned. Amazing.
But to be honest, I think the reason this article was written and published was because the Globe is the sports section in the most jeopardy right now. I wouldn't look for all of the veterans of the glory days to survive what Pinch Sulzberger has planned for his hostage bad investment. I'm speaking about people I regard as friends, but as a victim of a newspaper deciding competition was too much trouble, I know what happens.
I think this piece was just a little message inside the journalism community. Look what you're planning to trash, buddy.

 

Dave, thanks for posting John's response. That was a great read.

Of interest: John mentions Murray Kempton's column on Sal Maglie, when he opposed Don Larsen. That column is in "The Greatest Sportswriting of the Century" book, and is one of my favorites.

 

I grew up reading the Philadelphia Inquirer with ...

Sal Paolantonio covering the Eagles
Jayson Stark covering the Phillies


You also had Ray Diddinger and Al Morganti

 

I learned a ton from Herb, too, and perhaps the best testimonial I can give him is that when I first arrived there, I didn't work directly for him but did work involving his staff, and we had a MAJOR head-butting -- some pretty bitter feelings and bad things said -- over something I didn't do and was supposed to, or not, depending on who you talked to.

Two years later, a job working for Herb did come up, and we both set aside the past, and I have to say, it was a great working relationship and we became, I'm pretty sure, good friends.

He was old school but not averse to new ideas, a pro's pro to work for, and a link to the best days in this business. He also got out (to retirement) just in time. The bad started arriving about a year later at the Times.

 

I'm asking this because I don't know.
What happened?
When I became aware of this, the OC Register was up to about 350,000 and the LAT OC edition was down to about 220,000.

 

Well, to be fair -- I remember the "over-300,000 tee shirts," but that might have been Sunday, I don't recall. They were topping that mark one way or another.

What happened was kind of a progression: There was a time the Times was out to cover all of Southern California by its extended definition (not just L.A. and OC). That meant a San Diego Edition, a Valley Edition in addition to OC. With grandiose plans in the Inland Empire.

Those times were when the Times went to 1.2 million plus in circulation. And all of those editions had heavy sections of localization.

The very beginning of the end was the shuttering of the San Diego Edition. Then things went on for a while, and the next shoe was the hiring of Cereal Killer Mark Willes, the clueless publisher who came in and began cutting "the fat" and was infamous for, among other things, cutting out the free rolls at Red Lobster for a time (he came from General Mills).

That was followed by the now horrible sale of Times Mirror to Tribune, and not soon after Tribune came aboard, it decided that all of the big bureaus weren't worth the resources. And those were slowly and then more quickly scaled back -- winding up in the current state where OC is basically covered wherever it can be covered in the main paper.

Obviously given the climate, you can't attribute the circulation plunge from 1.2 million to 700-some thousand just to that, but I'm willing to bet it didn't help.

 

Because of all my LAT asides, I feel duty bound to get this thread back on semi-track, if not strickly a comparison to the Globe section in question, then at least an overall discussion of "best sections."

Here's corollary: The talk of the Fort Worth section headed by Blackie brings up this: What other "small market" papers had an unusual collection of talent, many of whom went on to bigger and better things. I'm thinking there have to be some Florida golden age papers when Bradenton and Clearwater and Cocoa Beach and even places like Leesburg were doing great work. Anybody else have some ideas about it?

 

I love the Post's sports section. Used to be a big fan of the Freep before it was Gannetized. Used to be a big fan of the Chicago Tribune's before they went to tab. Balto Sun used to also have a good one, but I can barely look at that paper anymore without rubbing my eyes.

 

Is Chicago Tribune a tab every day? Or only certain editions??

 

Yes, back in the glory days, when sports sections were bigger than pocket schedules, spent money and accrued talent, there were many great ones (all listed here). But the Globe always stood out to me. Every beat writer was a relative icon, an expert and a personality, all rolled into one. And Montville was simply great. But I'll always remember one thing: I was covering the Lakers for the L.A. Daily/Valley News back in the early 80s. For one of those Lakers-Celtics preview packages, the Globe ran opposing columns on Magic and Bird (I think written by Scott Ostler and Montville, but can't remember). What stood out was they ran the columns in the silhouettes of Magic and Bird's faces, facing each other. It was the greatest cover I've ever seen.

 

I really liked The National Sports Daily, especially the in-depth stuff in the middle of the paper.

 

Well, they were often great but almost don't count. Kind of like comparing any MLB team with the NL All-Star team. Plus, lacked longevity.