All-time favorite piece of sports journalism?

You can pretty much pull out any Gary Smith story - my personal fave is Richie Parker - but before turning into a gimmicky columnist, Reilly was the best they had at SI. I don't have a link for it, but his "gamer" about Nicklaus winning the '86 Masters is my favorite all-time golf story (featuring Greg Norman's "fore!-iron"), followed closely by Fred Couples' win in '91 or '92 (with the lead about one less cup of fertilizer, a blade of grass with weak knees).

 

One of my favorite deadline stories ever.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/augusta/si_history_stories/1986.html

Reilly wrote in his book that he chose the lede he did because he remembered Jimmy Breslin interviewing the gravedigger when Kennedy was shot. Sometimes the bigger the event, the smaller your initial focus needs to be.

 

Mr Down,

I'm not a big RR guy. Yeah, he shows us the arm ... but who owns it? And why not get a word from the guy? God knows, he might have been working the board for His (Jack, that is) first Masters win. There's detail and then there's detail. Comparisons to early Breslin are not, I believe, warranted. Glad RR puts a Masters up there with JFK's last ride tho'.

YHS, etc

 

While strolling down memory lane this afternoon, I stumbled upon said columns:

http://www.jsonline.com/story/?id=311288

http://www.jsonline.com/story/?id=311595

http://www.jsonline.com/story/?id=312168

http://www.jsonline.com/story/?id=312592

 

I hereby resurrect a two-year-old thread to FINALLY bear witness to an online version of Charles P. Pierce's "The Man. Amen" masterpiece on Tiger Woods.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

http://books.google.com/books?id=9qnkKmTzzR8C&pg=PA139&lpg=PA139&ots=3W6GbHlAqu&dq=%22The+Man.+Amen.%22&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html&sig=ACfU3U1i8MrRcB9vT24qbaa-DTeQvijWxg

rb

 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this. When I was younger and in the business, it was the standard of standards. I must be older than I thought, but the head line "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu" and the writing by John Updike on the occasion of Ted Williams' final game was, for me, as good as it gets.

Here is a link (which might or might not work):

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/articles/hub_fans_bid_kid_adieu_article.shtml

 

Jack Olsen had a great story in SI in the late 1960s about the deaths by grizzly bear of a couple of people in Glacier National Park. Riveting stuff that really took you to the scene. The story was either turned into a book, or maybe the original story was an excerpt. Whatever, it was good stuff.

 

I always loved Tom Wolfe's "Last American Hero" about Junior Johnson. I wasn't even born yet when Esquire published it. The coolest professor I had in college dropped it in our freshmen English packet and I still remember the joy of discovering it as an 18-year-old kid who had never even thought about making a living as a writer.

Found a copy of it on Junior's web site:
http://www.juniorjohnson.org/html/LAH.asp

And Rockbottom, thanks for reviving an enjoyable old thread that I meant to contribute to the first time around.

 

Indeed, Wolfe's piece on Junior Johnson is superior. Hell, almost everything by Wolfe is superior. He should be one of us more often.

 

Looks like it was a monstrous three-part story.

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1082388/index.htm

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1082417/index.htm

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1082439/index.htm

 

Goddammit, I'm blinking back tears just thinking about that one.
But for money, it's the SI obit on Mickey Mantle for one line:
The world will always belong to those who swing from the heels.

 

One of my faves that hasn't been mentioned here is Gary Smith's piece on Mike Tyson. Extremely intense lead and a great piece of writing: http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1067130/index.htm