Link of the Day: The Glory Days of the Boston Globe
Are you a sports junkie? Are you a journalism junkie? Are you a sports journalism junkie?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you must read this great piece about the history of the Boston Globe sports section. Peter Gammons, Bob Ryan, Will McDonough, Jackie MacMullen, Bud Collins, Leigh Montville, Ray Fitzgerald, John Powers…just a murderer’s row of talent. Though I never lived in Boston, these are the kinds of stories I imagined when I decided I wanted to be a sportswriter.
Money quote:
They all fear the day is coming when there will be no front page of the sports section to commemorate a championship won, no all-scholastic contribution to schoolboy lore and no tout telling you there’s more coverage inside. In recent years buyouts have gutted the staff and budget cuts have restricted its travel. The New York Times Co., which bought the paper for $1.1 billion as its “crown jewel” in 1993, threatened to close its doors last month, but later reached an agreement with the paper’s unions that spared it for now.
After all the five-hour Yankee/Sox games and the triple-overtime NBA Finals contests, there has always been morning in New England. Talking to Powers about buyouts, Ryan, now 63, said he wasn’t interested. Powers, who along with Shaughnessy and Dupont are the only other staffers still left from that ’70s golden age, offered that even without the paper, surely Ryan would be comfortable given his television work opportunities. Ryan disagreed. He explained that when he appears on Pardon the Interruption or The Sports Reporters, the most important part of his introduction isn’t “Bob Ryan.” It is “of The Boston Globe.”
UPDATE: Friend of JK.com Alex Belth has a great update on the Globe sports section piece, in which he asks long-time sports columnist John Schulian for his take. Schulian argues that the story needed more context (I would argue, a sidebar or a companion piece) ranking the Globe against the other great sports sections of the past few decades. Included among those great sports sections was the L.A. Times, which featured a number of great writers, headlined by my two favorites, Jim Murray and Mike Downey.
As I said in a Q&A I did with Fake Teams:
RJK: Best Sports Writer of the bunch – Jim Murray, Tony Kornheiser, Bill Simmons, or Rick Reilly?
JK: Jim Murray. When my then-GF/now-wife and I started dating, I’d go to visit her in Southern California in the summertime. Murray and Mike Downey were both writing for the LA Times at the time, and I was smitten. Couldn’t wait to crack open the paper every day. Murray was phenomenal, one of a few people who really influenced me as a journalist coming up. That was a key time for me too, as I was smack in the middle of journalism school.
