Chris Jones on Jason Whitlock

The umpire in the Galarraga game? Didn't know he could write. Anyone else?

 

Writers like that include S.L. Price, Atul Gawande, Laura Hillenbrand, Jane Leavy, David Maraniss.

Their pieces are built on story, structure, and reporting. Few rhetorical flourishes.

 

In what way would you not know their names?? You see any of those bylines, you pick up the story. The writer's reputation precedes the work...and probably prejudices how the reader experiences it.

 

They are representative of the kind of writing I am talking about. "The invisible writer" I once read an essay referring to it as. I could go through my stack of magazines and start finding stories in which the writer receded into the background. For example, Scott Raab is not such a writer. Gary Smith is not such a writer. But I refuse to agree with YGBFKM that long-form writers, by nature, care more about ego than story. It is a long-held SportsJournalists.com trope, meant to exhalt the daily beat writer, and I refuse to participate in that generalization.

 

You said the reader wouldn't know their names, trying to understand what that means. I can't imagine any of those writers wishing to be compared to an umpire or referee.

As to your other point, i'm curious if anyone else feels that there's a general SJ disdain for long form writers. I find that it's quite the opposite, almost worshipful to the extreme.

 

So speaking to your two points: (1) The umpire comparison is that you know an umpire did a good job when you don't notice the umpire. I think that a great storyteller would want the same. (2) I think it would be more accurate to say that there are two SportsJournalists.com warring factions: Those who worship at the altar of the beat writer, and those that worship at the altar of the long-form feature writer.

 

Which side dibs Ponyboy?

 

I want to go on record to say I like both forms ( think worship is a bit strong for me although I do think there some worshipers around here)

 

Me, too. That's why Whitlock's dig about long-form writers rubbed me the wrong way.

 

You might want to read Leavy's new book on Mantle. The writer being "invisible" is pretty much the opposite of what's going on there.

Personally, I liked her Koufax book a LOT more.

 

Hey, Buck, I have read it. I understand what you're saying - i.e. the narrative device with her meeting with Mantle at the casino event in the mid-'80s.

I think I'm not being clear enough, particularly including a writer in that group who writes in first-person. All I'm referring to is the manner of stacking words and sentences one on top of the other. With the exception of the first-person portions, which are a little more "writerly," I think that the Mantle book is written pretty straight-forward. The chapter about the search for the boy who found the 565-foot home run ball, for example, was a page-turner.

Leavy's a great writer and reporter. But in two of her books - both the novel "Squeeze Play" and the Mantle book - there is this weird, awkward sexuality infused. In "Squeeze Play," the protagonist beat writer actually has a romantic relationship with one of the players she covers. In "The Last Boy," (spoiler alert), Mantle shakes her up by drunkenly hitting on her.

 

I'd like to go on record saying that I've seen the word "trope" on this thread/site more in the past week than I ever have in my life.