One dinner. Four journalists. And you. Whom do you choose?

Four journalists, living or dead:

Shirley Povich
Red Smith
Mike Royko
Sam Lacy

 

I'm a good listener.

 

Spaceman sees 21, utters those three magic words and the face of SportsJournalists.com is irreconcilably altered.

 

Ernest Hemingway, Red Smith, Dan and Sally Jenkins.

 

Rick Reilly, Gary Smith, Jim Murray and Hunter Thompson

 

Can't play for real -- I'd be outed in a minute -- but have an affection for The Best White Sox Third Baseman Until Robin Ventura's list, as well as the Doc's (though trust me -- if you didn't have a clear path to Royko getting to know you and accepting you, especially in his later years, that was a hard, hard road).

 

Really? I figured I'd be the only one genuinely interested in meeting Simon.

 

Lester Bangs, Molly Ivins, Frank DeFord and Carl Hiaasen.

Little music, little politics, little sports and a while lotta cynical humor.

 

You have my congratulations for getting that within two posts (for those of you not as sharp, Hunsecker is the bully New York columnist in a great movie "The Sweet Smell of Success," played by Burt Lancaster. Sidney was Tony Curtis, a smarmy little punk who was J.J.'s toady.

 

1. Arch Ward -- far and away the most powerful sportswriter/editor ever.
2. Bob Considine -- semi-forgotten, but an absolute great.
3. Philip Roth (he can come as Zuckerman if he wants)
4. John McPhee

 

I don't think I can top that list.

However, some of my closest friends are fellow journalists and I'd love the chance to sit down to dinner with them -- something that doesn't happen often since they're spread around the Southeast.

 

Truman Capote, Walter Cronkite, Ben Bradlee (thank ya, Zeke) and Helen Thomas.