Gary Smith

I figured he was a lot older than he was/is - I think his greatest gift is his ability to take one of those feel-good stories like "Radio" or his article on the Wyoming cross-country team and make them compelling and important, making you wonder why it took a mishap to get somebody to uncover this story and write about these people.
His article on the Bonds single-season home-run ball was fantastic.

 

He stole the Radio story that made such waves. Josh Peter, now at Yahoo, wrote it when he was at the Anderson Independent-Mail. He sent Gary a copy to get some react/advice. Gary jumped on it, and essentially got coaches to recite some of the anecdotes that Josh had witnessed. I was glad to see Josh get a credit mention at the end of the movie version. But Gary Smith, a great liar. I heard answer a question about the story and he went into all this detail that he had known about it for years and had finally convinced SI to let him write it. He never would have heard if Josh hadn't sent him a copy of his story, which won an APSE award.

 

Thanks for stopping by, Josh.

 

Sorry, Josh. Anything we can do to help?

 

Strong words. Your proof?

 

What you want him to bust out a copy of the envelope he sent him? It happens all the time. All writers do it. If Josh got credit in the movie, it's more than likely that he had the story first. Just look at the date of publications.

PS: I'm not Josh if anyone hasn't noticed.

 

I want to know on what evidence he calls Mr. Smith a "liar."

 

He's talking about the ESPN story about radio and Gary Smith that Disney cross-promoted before the movie came out in which Gary talks about how he met Radio and got the story.

 

And in which exactly what was said that constituted a "lie?"

 

We discussed some of this before on the thread where Rick Reilly was complaining that ESPN was stealing his stories and winning Emmys:

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/posts/1222466/

I call b.s. too on the "liar" part, unless Mr. Peter has done so only in private company. I'd also call b.s. about the "got some assistant coaches to recite some of the anacdotes that Josh witnessed" as if that's all Smith did for the piece.

For what it's worth, the Radio story has always been one of my least favorite Smith pieces.

 

There's a discrepancy here that I haven't been able to resolve. Did Mr. Peter's piece appear in 1993 or 1996? Both dates are cited. I can't find the piece on line. Does anyone have a copy?

 

Gary Smith is pretty good, but he's Frank Deford-Lite, in my view.