Best Current Sports Sections

As much as it pains me to say anything nice about the OWH, I agree. Much love for Tom Shatel, too.

 

My thoughts, too. The Tribune's section stinks to high heaven these days. And I believe it's down to 6 measly pages a day.

 

The Washington Post masthead is so blinding, apparently, that people have trouble seeing the personnel clearly. Let's do a quick around the horn.

Kornheiser is gone. Who's the New Kornheiser -- or anything close? Wilbon is virtually gone. Who's the New Wilbon -- or anything close? Who's turning out baseball pieces that can touch the ones Tom Boswell was cranking out, regularly, 25 years ago (and then collecting them in books that sold well). Is there anybody outside the Post building who doesn't think Les Carpenter is a tradedown from Bill Gildea? And who among the college writers strikes you as a Young John Feinstein?

So what are we really talking about here? We're talking about a section that gives you volume. We're talking about one of the few sections around that still has the manpower to be relatively complete. But qualitatively it's been slipping for years.

Mike Wise, one of their columnists, does a four-hour radio show five days a week. He really doesn't have much time or energy to write a column, but he still does a few a week -- and they often come across as hurry-up jobs. A recent effort about Gilbert Arenas contained the telltale words, "his father said when he first told me the story three years ago."

Wilbon is being pulled in so many different directions that it's a miracle he's in the paper at all anymore. One of his recent efforts, about Sherm Lewis, included the following passage:

"In 1998, in a column for this newspaper, I wrote rather angrily about Lewis being passed over for head coaching vacancies despite having all of the, uh, necessities to do the job. One of the people I talked to about Lewis was the great Bill Walsh, author of the modern-day West Coast offense and Lewis's mentor.

"Part of what I wrote that day included, `[Lewis] has been a coordinator for the Packers the last four years. Lewis learned Bill Walsh's West Coast offense before both the head coaches in this Super Bowl, [Mike] Holmgren and Mike Shanahan. Walsh has said Lewis has had more experience teaching the West Coast offense than any of his pupils. And . . . Lewis has experience as both a defensive coordinator [at Michigan State] and an offensive coordinator in the pros.

"`There's literally nothing an assistant coach can do that Sherm Lewis hasn't already done . . . He's like a Ph.D. of football.'"

A sure sign of a writer who's juggling too many balls: He starts quoting himself.

Sally Jenkins, who's fabulous, writes once a week, basically. Tracee Hamilton, whose less fabulous, writes more often. One of Tracee's recent columns included the following passage:

"Other teams may have the football gods on speed dial, but they seem to largely ignore the Redskins, so if you're a fan you should enjoy their rare visits. It's like when your husband brings home flowers unprompted one night -- you know he bought them at the Metro stop, you know they were cheap to begin with and cheaper still because the vendor wanted to empty his buckets, you know he's never done it before and he might never do it again, and there's a good chance he just did it because he got hammered with his friends the weekend before and threw up on the bathroom rug. But still, they're flowers and they're pretty and you figure, this is as good as it gets."

Nothing like a little bathroom rug vomit with your morning coffee. In fact, maybe I could spread some on my English muffin . . .

Does no one else notice this stuff? The Post has kinda turned into the print version of ESPN. They do a great job of promoting the hell out of their people on TV and radio and on their Web site, turning them into "celebrities," but I don't want celebrity for my 75 cents. Put it this way: I got much more for my money 10 or 15 years ago, and it's not just because of cutbacks. It's because the section has gone noticeably downhill. There's a reason the Post's circulation has dropped 200,000 or more (from what I read) in the last decade or so, and it's a copout to say, "Well, those are just the times we live in." A lot of things are contributing to the situation, and one of them, in this case, is: You ain't nearly as good as you used to be.

 

Dear Monroe: A sports section can have writers who aren't quite as good as Michael, Tony, Tom and Sally, and Bill Gildea, a personal favorite, and they can still have some of the best writers in the country. It defies the statistical probabilities that NONE of the new writers the Post has brought in in the last decade isn't at least competitive with writers who are, after all, Hall of Famers in the profession.

 

Trust me, Mike, if you'd been reading the Post every day for most of your life, you wouldn't be saying that. Besides, one of my major points is that, nowadays, some of the best writers -- the Post's included -- are prevented from giving readers their best, day in and day out, because they're so weighted down with other things (TV, radio, what have you). Talk to any of these writers. Talk to Wise. Talk to Wilbon. Ask them, "Are you able to write the kind of columns you'd like to write, or do you find yourself settling for less because of . . . circumstances?" I guarantee you they'd say -- if they were being honest -- that it was difficult to keep their work up to their previous high standards. This is one of the elephants in the room, as far as I'm concerned -- newspapers that turn a blind eye to the negative effect that Other Jobs/Duties can have on quality. Buy the Washington Post . . . and get 57 percent of Mike Wise. Buy the Post . . . and get 31 percent of what you used to get from Mike Wilbon. Hell of a selling point. Do you honestly think readers are so dumb that they don't notice -- in the nation's capital particularly, where there are more people with advanced degrees, from what I understand, than anywhere else in the country?

 

Dave Sheinin is one of the best baseball writers in the country.

 

Agreed

 

uh, tom boswell is turning out baseball pieces that touch the ones tom boswell was cranking out 25 years ago. he hasn't lost one mph off his fastball. no question about wilbon: i used to say he was the best columnist in america a few years ago; i don't anymore. but -- and yes, it's blasphemy -- i always thought kornheiser was an overrated, borscht-belt hack, low on reporting and not that funny. guess what? tracee hamilton is funnier. sheinin is great, wise the best column/feature combo writer in the nation (not that there's much competition anymore) and, yes, i loved gildea, but carpenter does a fine job. their hockey stuff is superb, and features unmatched. sally's terrific and thought-provoking in a way few are. and you're getting this all from someone who grew up loving the kindred/denlinger/boswell post. considering the circumstances, the thing is a daily miracle.

 

Hey, great idea. Let's start calling it The Daily Miracle.

I hope you and Tracee are very happy together. (Just try not to puke on her bathroom rug.)

Boz's last collection was published in the mid-90s.

Here's all you need to know, really, about their beyond-compare staff of writers: When they needed to replace Kornheiser a few years ago, they went outside the building to hire Wise. When they made Tony a columnist, did they go outside the building? (No.) When they made Wilbon a columnist, did they go outside the building? (No.) When they made Sally a columnist, did they go outside the Post family? (No.) I rest my case.

 

i don't know tracee, and i'm sorry if you don't agree. i don't care when "boz's" last collection was published; since when are the opinions of the new york publishing world the last word when it comes to talent? i also don't give a rat's ass whether they went outside the building, the city or the planet to get their talent, so long as i find what they print thought-provoking and new. i didn't say the staff was beyond compare but, then, what does that matter? you wanted to get off a screed and any hint of disagreement is just plain foolish, i guess. please enlighten us some more.

 

Sorry. I know some people don't respond well when you hit them over the head with logic.

When the Post made Boz a columnist, by the way, they also stayed inside the department.

And when they made Tracee a columnist, everybody said, "Where did she come from?" (Answer: She was on the Post staff, but she hadn't been writing.)

My point, which you seem to be ignoring, is: The Post is supposed to have this wonderful staff of terrific writers -- that's what I keep reading on this board -- and yet none of them is columnist material? That strikes me as awfully strange. Especially since, not long ago, the section had columnists coming out of its ears -- so many that J.A. Adande, who never wrote a column at the Post, left and started writing one for the L.A. Times; so many that Richard Justice, who also never wrote a column at the Post, left and still writes one at the Houston Chronicle.

That, to me, is highly relevant when you're considering the question: How good is the Post sports staff today?

Give my best to your pet rat.

 

beautiful. sorry, but i've never thought becoming a columnist was the be-all and end-all of understanding someone's talents as a writer/reporter. some people are great at beats, great at features, and awful columnists; some people are elevated to a column when they shouldn't be. adande, for example, should never have been a columnist; i think he's truly bad. again, i'm not disagreeing with your largest point -- that the fragmenting of the job has cost wilbon, and maybe wise, energy when it comes to their columns. i just happen to think the post is loaded, and you don't. but again, you're very special. so keep it coming.