Are sportswriters funny anymore?

[Ben_Hecht]

I think we've become desensitized to funny. Twenty years ago, you had one guy on Page 2 or maybe a Sunday column trying to do humor. Now you see it on every blog and in every Simmons-like column every single hour of every single day.

It used to be a breath of fresh air to read something funny. Now funny is all there is, and it's a breath of fresh air to read something serious.

I blame ESPN and TV in general. A generation of journos grew up with Stuart Scott or Dan Patrick or Keith Olbermann or Craig Kilborn or Chris Berman on SportsCenter. Everyone's got to have a punchline. We've become so desensitized to it that nothing is funny and everyone seems like a copycat.

I was talking with a high school radio guy that we work with the other day. He said "radio, TV is where it's at. Everyone knows Gus Johnson." I had to chomp on my tongue to tell the kid that he's never going to be Gus Johnson. Try being a professional announcer first, then develop your own style.

I worked at a college station in Indiana in the mid-1990s, when Bob and Tom were drawing humongous ratings in Indianapolis. *Every* DJ show on the station was one or two people trying to be Bob and Tom. None came close.

Patrick, Olberman and Kilborn were funny.

Three out of five wasn't bad.

 

[jlee]

Sports are less fun anymore, too.

 

[Scott Carefoot]

Humor is subjective, but whoever started this thread must be making a point to avoid reading online-only writers on principle. As mentioned previously, Drew Magary, Spencer Hall and Jon Bois are all very, very funny writers. I'm biased because I work with him, but I think Trey Kerby of The Basketball Jones blog is the funniest NBA writer out there.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

Before Reilly thought he was the funniest thing since Groucho.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/rick_reilly/news/2003/07/01/reilly0707/

Joe Delaney drowned 29 years ago yesterday.

 

[Alma]

Humor is subjective, but whoever started this thread must be making a point to avoid reading online-only writers on principle. As mentioned previously, Drew Magary, Spencer Hall and Jon Bois are all very, very funny writers. I'm biased because I work with him, but I think Trey Kerby of The Basketball Jones blog is the funniest NBA writer out there.

I can't say I agreed with my friend about a lack of humor today. I started the thread. I read all those folks.

 

[93Devil]

I think we've become desensitized to funny. Twenty years ago, you had one guy on Page 2 or maybe a Sunday column trying to do humor. Now you see it on every blog and in every Simmons-like column every single hour of every single day.

It used to be a breath of fresh air to read something funny. Now funny is all there is, and it's a breath of fresh air to read something serious.

I blame ESPN and TV in general. A generation of journos grew up with Stuart Scott or Dan Patrick or Keith Olbermann or Craig Kilborn or Chris Berman on SportsCenter. Everyone's got to have a punchline. We've become so desensitized to it that nothing is funny and everyone seems like a copycat.

I was talking with a high school radio guy that we work with the other day. He said "radio, TV is where it's at. Everyone knows Gus Johnson." I had to chomp on my tongue to tell the kid that he's never going to be Gus Johnson. Try being a professional announcer first, then develop your own style.

I worked at a college station in Indiana in the mid-1990s, when Bob and Tom were drawing humongous ratings in Indianapolis. *Every* DJ show on the station was one or two people trying to be Bob and Tom. None came close.

Patrick, Olberman and Kilborn were funny.

Three out of five wasn't bad.

Mayne was as well.

Steiner and Mees had their moments.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Humor is subjective, but whoever started this thread must be making a point to avoid reading online-only writers on principle. As mentioned previously, Drew Magary, Spencer Hall and Jon Bois are all very, very funny writers. I'm biased because I work with him, but I think Trey Kerby of The Basketball Jones blog is the funniest NBA writer out there.

There is funny, and then there is funny within the rules, which is harder, or at least different. So I would eliminate bloggers and even most book and magazine writers. A lot of really funny stuff gets said off the cuff in newspaper newsrooms, but we simply could not print it. Say what you want about that, but then you are saying you prefer apples over oranges.

Worked for a guy when I was starting out who I didn't think was all that funny in real life, and he wound up doing some standup comedy on the side a while later. Never saw his act, but I would guess he could say some things at the club that he never could say in the paper.

Back to the topic, we might have had more consistently "funny" sports writers in the 1980s (many would say Jim Murray was the all-time funniest, but I wasn't really a fan of one-liner after one-liner after one-liner and I probably laughed more at Scott Ostler's stuff when he wrote for the LAT). But I've always preferred the columnists who could be funny one day, rip somebody the next day, make you cry the next time. And make all of it look effortless. He'll always catch shirt on this board for one really awful attempt at humor, but the aforementioned Whicker was for decades the best I've ever seen at having command of all his pitches consistently. Unless you want to count Red Smith, who would just sneak in the funny stuff sometimes -- and you knew the rules he was following were harder than anyone else's.

 

[Elliotte Friedman]

Love Simers.

To me, the biggest problem is that there are a lot of people who think they're really funny...but aren't. I'd absolutely put myself in that class, for much of my career. I'd have (what I thought) was a killer line and it would come out totally flat. What I've learned with experience is that there are different ways to be funny. If you're not Simers or Magary (who is great, too), you have to save your bullets. And, most important, you must learn delivery.

Crimsonace is 100 per cent right about TV, though. The problem is much bigger there. ESPN created the "snark-anchor" -- and some of those guys were great at it. Problem was, everyone began to think that was the way to get to the top, and not everyone can actually do it.

When you can't, it's painful.

It's now gone that way with interviewing. The Score (the TV station in Canada I used to work) had a couple of guys who were very good at the funny, ad-lib interview. Then EVERYONE started to do it. And, not everyone can do it well.

To be a great section (or TV show), you must have a mix. Not everyone can be a comedian.

 

[Ice9]

This question came as part of a longer conversation I was had with a friend about the skills and style of thebest sportswriters today vs. the best 30 years ago. I was (willingly) in the position of defending this generation, which, at the very least, has the ability to render a scene with delicacy and more visual punch than many of the best 30 years ago. And I find far fewer hoary cliches, too.

But my friend insisted on this point: Sportswriters aren't funny anymore. I pressed him on what kind of "funny" he was referring to, and it seemed to be turns of phrase, puns, jokes, quips, and the like. I'm not sure there's a universal definition of "funny," I told him, and he answered back with this: "Young guys are too damn intense. It seems like they're going to die on every hill in their stories. And they are not funny. They don't want to be funny."

I throw it to the crowd.

Full disclosure: I am in my late 20's.

My generation definitely takes itself way too seriously, and thinks they're gonna save the world with their sportswriting, and therefore isn't very funny. I find older generations to have more a sense of gravity and humor about the business -- we're in the "toy department" after all, aren't we?

 

[jackfinarelli]

There are a bunch of sportswriters I find funny - - more often than not. In no particular order:

TJ Simers - LA Times

Scott Ostler - SF Chronicle

Steve Rosenbloom - Chicago Tribune

Gene Collier - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Ray Ratto - Foxsports.com

Greg Cote - Miami Herald

Dan Daly - Washington Times

Bob Molinaro - Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot

Dwight Perry - Seattle Times

David Whitley - SN.com

Brad Rock - Deseret News

Frank Fitzpatrick - Philly Inquirer

... and probably a few others who will come to mind an hour after I post this.