Best Columnist Ever...

If the category is ... Best. Columnist. Ever. ... the winner is Mike Royko. Not. Even. Close.

A close second? My personal library also includes plenty of Lewis Grizzard. Where's the love for the late, great Grizzard? Like Royko, his best stuff could make me laugh out loud one day and be incredibly moving the next.

Grizzard died in 1994, I think. Royko passed in 1997. Two huge losses. I've yet to find anyone else who approaches their level of greatness with any consistency.

And no, it's not about being a snob, because some of the best Royko and Grizzard columns had to do with sports. If I remember correctly, Grizzard spent time as the sports editor at one of the Chicago dailies.

If the category is best sports columnist, you can't miss with Jim Murray.

 

Jim. Murray. Is. The. Best. Columnist. Ever.

 

I loved Murray, and he was a great guy.

In terms of personal preferences for style, I was more of a Red Smith guy.

Both, of course, were terrific.

 

frank rich.

brilliant melding of politics and pop culture.

cuts through the b.s. and government spin.

connects the dots.

my reaction after reading his sunday column is, "oh, now i understand."

 

The anthology, "The Great Reporters," is edited and with an introduction by the veteran Brit journalist David Randall. Chapter 10 is entitled "The best writer ever to apply words to newsprint." It's about the London sports columnist Hugh McIlvanney. Argue at your peril, because I've read enough McIlvanney to know he's the rarest of writers, a stylist with substance, and Randall makes his case well.

McIlvanney certainly belongs in this conversation, if for no other reason than his lede on Ali-Foreman: "We should have known that Muhammad Ali would not settle for any ordinary old resurrection. His had to have an additional flourish. So, having rolled away the rock, he hit George Foreman on the head with it."

Ben Hecht belongs, too (the original, no offense to our Ben)....

 

Rich writes preacher style (the way Sharpton talks). It's very impressive sounding, you walk away wowed the first few times, but you eventually realize that the substance doesn't match the glitz.

Oh, and sorry, but you still don't understand.

 

If you aren't familiar with the singular newspaper work of Pete Dexter, there's hope. A collection of his columns, titled "Paper Trails," has just been published.

 

There are also his novels, "Paper Boy" and "Paris Trout."

 

bizarre.

i'm trying to think of a comparable non sequiter, but i don't think one exists.

 

Anyone have access to the Dave Barry column about his mom's death? (Not coming up on Google) I'd like to see how he approached that ...

 

And I'll second the opinion that Bob Greene's early stuff was pretty damn good ... Can you imagine that both him and Royko were both writing in the same city at the same time?

 

http://www.davebarry.com/gg/lostinamerica.html