HBO doc on Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill

Anybody seen the HBO documentary on Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill? Watching it now and it's a really cool window into that era of journalism/columnists.

Here's David Simon's take. The last line is really poignant in today's current climate:

 

Very well done documentary.

 

Hamill's career, just unreal. Also enjoyed his memoir "A Drinking Life," about how he quit the sauce back in the early 1970s. I've often thought how much more productive I could be as a writer without drinking, but after about a week on the wagon I start to get manic.

 

I don't think I'll ever tire of Breslin's story on JFK's funeral, telling it through the eyes of the man who dug his grave.

 

https://www.newsday.com/opinion/digging-jfk-grave-was-his-honor-jimmy-breslin-1.6481560

As I mentioned on the RIP thread, this should be required reading along with "Death of a Racehorse."

 

My first introduction to Breslin was "Racing's Angriest Young Man" in Best American Sports Writing of the Century. Can't find it online and don't really remember it, to be honest.

The tenacity Breslin displayed is one of the many things I miss about today's newspapers. Just don't see that very often.

 

Thanks for the information. Wish I could watch it, but HBO and dish are in some sort of dispute. It's been going for a couple of months, at least.

 

I flipped through this and Dick Young won for best news story. It was his fourth award, putting him one/half award from the judges, putting him one behind W.G. Heinz and Jesse Abramson. Sadly I am old enough to remember many of the bylines included in the analogy.

A couple questions,

One, I know Dick Young is credited with inventing the modern game story. Fine. And when I read him it was when he was well over the hill as a columnist in the Sporting News. But I never thought he was the greatest writer, or even one of the top 50, of his generation.

I know who W.G. Heinz was. A hero. If for nothing else for "Run to Daylight" though he did a lot more. But I have absolutely no idea who Jesse Abramson is or what he did. Can someone tell me. Thank you.

 

I've watched it twice. I grew up reading both of them, and was elated when I wound up writing freelance for the Daily News' business section in the late '80s because of that. But true to tabloid style, Bad Boy Breslin gets most of the real estate in this doc.

 

For my biography of Bill Hartack, one of my best sources was "Racing's Angriest Young Man." Steal from the best if you're gonna steal.