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1. Minnesotahorn said:

   May 8th, 2009 at 3:29 pm

   Damn. You were all over this as I just sat down to write about it. Our audience is better off I’m sure.

   “Respectfully, I think Cartwright misses the mark here:

   Sad to say, newspapers are now being swallowed up by a parallel universe that revolves around the Internet. Nobody under fifty reads newspapers anymore. I don’t know if they read anything. Funny books may well exceed their limits of comprehension.”

   Yeah, that chapped me as a lazy swipe that I doubt he can really even believe.

   Here’s the dirty little secret and the bad news for those dinosaurs of the sports columns: it’s becoming increasingly unnecessary to pay for intelligent, insightful and humorous sports analysis. The internet has allowed people from all professions an opportunity to offer commentary on this common passion and unsurprisingly the best often comes from those folks who didn’t have to transfer out of their engineering, business, pre-law or pre-med programs. Reading audiences are no longer held hostage by a handful of tenured oafs whose main qualification is their duration in a certain market. That’s a good thing and it always pleases me to see them rage about it.

2. Kevin Blackistone said:

   May 8th, 2009 at 3:54 pm

   Anybody on this blog need their yard mowed? If so, call Gerry Fraley, or Evan Grant, or…

3. exuLt said:

   May 8th, 2009 at 4:32 pm

   “You may also detect a hint of self-regard in his essay. Yes. And? His self-regard is entirely justified.”

   And so the echos proliferate.

4. Scipio Tex said:

   May 8th, 2009 at 5:11 pm

   Bud Shrake gone.

5. Black Scholes said:

   May 8th, 2009 at 6:36 pm

   But Halliburton and Bohls still write for the Statesman, yes?

   They’re no John Maher, granted.

6. NorthDallasSooner said:

   May 8th, 2009 at 7:27 pm

   I have a little to say….

   I will admit, to begin, that my familiarity with Shrake is only with the glowing way that Jenkins, Sherrod and Cartwright have written about him over the years. So, while Shrake’s death calls up the memories of that era, those calls will get progressively louder with the inevitable demises of Cartwright, Sherrod and Jenkins (not in death order, but in increasing “importance” order).

   I travel 100+ days a year and while the flights become a beating, the best two hours in the air every month are the two hours I actually “schedule” with Texas Monthly. I encourage everyone who reads this Scipio post to click through on “read more Cartwright” and read his 2006 story about losing his wife. It’s the only time I’ve ever cried in an airplane, and I did rather embarassingly.

   With regard to Cartwright’s “good old days” rant regarding sportswriters, he is partially right. He’s not right in sort of damning the internet and blogs, that’s the future, but in lamenting that the writers of today, very much like the broadcasters, are a pale imitation of the last generations. How many of you would like to get Keith Jackson back? Complain all you want about Musburger’s over-excitement, but what the hell else is available? Mark Jones? Mike Patrick? Talk about fake enthusiasm.

   I think, moreso, the “death” of the old school sportswriter and newspaper is because of the generational A-D-D of readers. We live in a go-go environment that doesn’t allow for, or make desirable, newspapers and magazines. But, to you purists, do you really enjoy reading on your screen over on paper. I guess I’m 41 going on 80 if I’m alone in that.

   Back to the pack in question. I grew up reading “Some hither…others yon…” by the great Blackie Sherrod every Sunday morning in the old Times Herald. I was a kid and didn’t even know what the byline meant, but it was always a great read. As I grew older, it was Sunday morning religion for me. I was very sad the day Blackie announced it was his last Sunday column. (While it’s a bit bastardized, I do appreciate Craig Miller’s Friday scattershooting on The Ticket as a tribute to Blackie. It’s a Dallas thing.)

   In my opinion, the messiah to all these great writing apostles is the unmatched Dan Jenkins. I don’t read non-fiction. Hate it. Bores me. But, when Dan Jenkins writes it, I read it. Talk about LOL, read any, any, Jenkins novel. My particular favorite is “You Gotta Play Hurt.” It’s clearly auto-biographical, if still “fictional.” Is there a better line than in writing about covering late-70s Wimbledon, “trying to figure out which Swede had the dirtiest hair>.”

   Last point…let’s not lose the fact in the energy of the old school writers laud that will show now and to come that we have also had and have some of the greatest radio guys ever to grace the airwaves. I’m a Dallas boy, and regard Brad Sham as the best play-by-play man anywhere. There is no one better. Grew up listening to Verne Lundquist. Are you kidding? There’s no one I would rather hear call a college football TV broadcast. And, God bless him, even though he does the SEC, he always calls out the town and HS of the Texas kids.

   So, getting back to the beginning, yes, perhaps it’s inappropriate for Cartwright to suggest that great sports reporting is dead forever, I sure would feel better about it’s future if a 68 year old guy (Musburger) and a 70+ guy (Lundquist) weren’t still the best in the field on broadcast and anyone could sniff Jenkins and Sherrod in the printed word.

7. North Dallas Horn Fan said:

   May 8th, 2009 at 8:16 pm

   NorthDallas Sooner,
   I completely agree with every word you wrote.
   Thank you.

8. Facebook User said:

   May 8th, 2009 at 10:24 pm

   NDS – Thanks very much for going to the effort. Your response, on Scipo’s post, is why we started this blog. An OU guy on a Texas blog – having a great conversation.

9. Uncle Bevo said:

   May 9th, 2009 at 5:27 am

   I love my record albums. They take up lots of space, require maintenance, and I have to spend a dumpload of time and money on equipment (turntable, stylus, getting the tonearm perfectly balanced, my record vacuuming machine, etc.), but when they sound just right, nothing reduced to zillions of “1’s” and “0’s” sounds the same.

   But I understand itunes. It’s convenient. It’s fairly cheap. It makes sense if you are a casual music listener. I use if for stuff I want to hear but to which I have no emotional attachment.

   But it will never be the same. To go to the store and buy a vinyl record, to read the liner notes, to pour over the album photography, to look up who played sax on track three — to actually buy something than you can hold in your hands — That is music to me.

   Same thing with newspapers. I cried when they quit throwing the Dallas paper in Lubbock. The Longhorn sports coverage, the three pages of comics, the entertainment section that came out on Friday, etc.

   In a few years, our kids will be asking with incredulity why the hell we cut down all those trees and burned up all that fossil fuel to throw a piece of paper in people’s yards that we could look up on the internet for free.

   I don’t think I’ll be able to explain the joys of getting the morning newspaper with my dog, Pooter Bill any more than my father can explain seeing the Tom Nix cowboy serials on Saturday afternoon for a nickel.

   As far as sports writing goes, the cream will always rise to the top. Some people beautifully engage the English language and see instinctively into the societal elements of sports, like Sherrod. You’ll just have to listen harder to hear them in the future.

   Hook ‘em.

10. Vasherized said:

    May 9th, 2009 at 7:57 am

    But blogs are exactly where he’ll come from. The style will be different, but the insight, the irreverent humor, the peculiar cadence and tone of a generation, and the ability to look at the human condition through the inchoate world of grown men playing games will be exactly the same.

    That’s you, Scipio, in case it wasn’t obvious to everyone else reading this eloquent state of the union.

    But good luck getting out of Sailor’s non-compete clause when they come calling. You probably don’t even remember signing it. The wonders of Absynthe!

    Nice thoughts from NDS as well. Verne is a close friend of the family (he splits his time between Steamboat Springs and Dallas). Some of my most cherished memories over the last ten years have been staying up til the wee hours over multiple bottles of scotch listening to Verne exercise his photographic memory, recounting specific backstory to the 86 Masters, some halfime rushing total of an unknown running back from a 1980’s Cotton Bowl game, or Cowboys games from the 70’s when he used to call the games from the rooftop with binoculars and a spotter.

    His wall of fame has more signed pictures of famous athletes, broadcasters, actors and celebs than any collection I’ve seen – a testament to the genuine friendships he’s forged with these people over a lifetime of broadcasting, starting at Concordia in Austin in the 60’s.

11. srr50 said:

    May 9th, 2009 at 11:14 am

    Verne’s father was the long-time pastor at Gethesemane Lutheran here in Austin, and Verne got his start at KTBC-TV. Somewhere in the storage facility I have a B&W pic of a very young (and very thin) Verne Lundquist doing the sports.

12. Facebook User said:

    May 10th, 2009 at 7:17 pm

    Frank Rich on The American Press on Suicide Watch.

13. Brent Zwerman said:

    May 11th, 2009 at 6:55 am

    I’ve adjusted. I just get all my articles from texags.com.

14. Time said:

    May 11th, 2009 at 8:21 am

    I finally came to the realization sports journalism had fallen in the shit house when “journalists”–either the reporters or the editors–started putting out columns where even the chronology of a timed sporting event was completely cut up, twisted, and reversed like some crazy art film. It occurred to me I shouldn’t have to read a game summary three times to figure out what happened and when.

    If you aren’t bright enough to figure out that the order of events matters in sports, how can you be expected to understand rhythm, phrasing, alliteration, etc.

15. Scipio Tex said:

    May 11th, 2009 at 9:02 am

    NorthDallasSooner:

    Great post. Dan Jenkins is one of my heroes and You Gotta Play Hurt is his funniest work. You made me grab it out my bookshelf and start to reread it for the fifth time. Always good stuff from you, NDS.

    Uncle Bevo:

    I have a similar feeling about books. I know the merits of the Kindle and know that this is the future, but the smell of books, their heft in my hand, how the pages yellow slightly – I love books. I’ll always have a wall of them, no matter the technology.

    Vasherized:

    I’m not sure I was suggesting myself as the successor as I’m the definition of Cartwright’s “dabblers” mentioned above, but thanks for the kind words nonetheless.

    I didn’t know all that about VL. He always struck me as a good guy and a real gentleman.

    Time:

    Amen.

16. thebeeve said:

    May 11th, 2009 at 1:46 pm

    I’m not sure the fall of newspapers can be correlated to the rise of the internet. Newspapers started going away when they weren’t seen as community service by their parent corporation, something that happened before Gore invented the internet. Every city had the prominent family that bankrolled the local daily. Once this changed and shareholders preferred dividends over civic duty and gin soaked sportspages, the fall of the newspaper began. The bright people went elsewhere because the local paper decided to that they’d cover the out of town team by simply cutting and pasting the coverage elsewhere than by having a dedicated writer to live with and cover the team.

17. Facebook User said:

    May 11th, 2009 at 4:53 pm

    Deadspin opines.

18. coolhorn said:

    May 11th, 2009 at 7:58 pm

    Gary Cartwright’s right, and wrong, about the absolute decline of writing skills these days.

    He’s right that what’s out there now can’t hold a candle to Blackie Sherrod, Bud Shrake, Mickey Herskowitz, and others in sports journalism of a generation ago. The best of what’s out there now isn’t so much bad as boring, and with newspapers all but dead in the water, he’s right that newspapers won’t be producing any new Blackie Sherrods.

    In all fairness, it should be noted that for each Bud Shrake back in the day, there were scads of hacks in the sports departments. There always have been, but it’s just more noticeable these days because there’s few, if any, sportswriters that stand out. Cartwright’s right that today’s writers don’t seem like they’re having fun, or generating any unique takes on things.

    The internet is rapidly making newspapers irrelevant. That won’t change, and soon there’ll be virtually no more print media. Where I’m hoping Gary Cartwright is wrong is in the assertion that no equally-talented sportswriters will step up to fill the void.

    Blogs are a very good practice ground for writing skills, for those that want those skills and are willing to work at them. The internet is essentially just a different way of delivering news, sports, and other features that used to be the province of newspapers. I hope the internet, in time, will produce some writers with skill, wit, and unique takes on the sporting world. Some of what I read here and at other sites offers some hope.

19. srr50 said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 6:28 am

    There is another aspect to the demise of sportswriting that Cartwright laments that hasn’t been mentioned as of yet.

    That is television, specifically the money that television pours into sports. The exposure and dollars that flowed from television increased the hype and the pressure to produce, while decreasing the access and trust between the media and players and coaches.

    When Blackie Sherrod, Gary Cartwright and Bud Shrake were in their prime, they were working in what was considered to be the the “toy department” of the newspapers. The sports section was a diversion, and the news editors pretty much left them alone, as long as they weren’t making news themselves with their late night antics.

    The teams and the individuals they covered were still in the same financial zip code with most of the reporters (and even their fans).

    There was very little difference in the paychecks for SWC head coaches and the major market writers that covered them. Even in the NFL, there were a lot of players who had off-season jobs to supliment their NFL paychecks.

    That made it easier for each side to identify with the other. It made for a facinating working relationship where a writer could rip a coach or a professional player, and then still go out and have dinner with them.

    It made it easier for off the record conversations to stay off the record, and be used as background material.

    There was a real need for the work of Sherrod, Shrake and Cartwright because not every game was telecast, not every highlight was available 24-hours a day.

    There was a mutual respect on both sides, with both realizing that the other was just trying to do their job. There were flareups of course, when someone wrote something a coach or player didn’t like. But I know from experience that more than likely that would lead to a phone call from the aggrieved party and it would be talked out.

    In short, both sides needed each other, and they knew it. As the money increased, the disconnect between players and the media (and the fans) grew larger.

    With the increased exposure of the games themselves, there was less of a need for the sportwriter to tell you what happened, and more of a need for the writer to inject his own opinion as to why it happened. That meant writing about why players and coaches fucked up. And as the money increased, those players and coaches didn’t particularly care to hear those opinions.

    The televsion money means that the hype machine is in full bore from that media, and it means they sure as hell don’t want to spend any amount of time looking into what is wrong with the sport.

    Meanwhile the money (and the public’s facination with how the playes spend that money) makes the off-the-field lives of athletes and coaches fair game for reporters.

    Throw in an increasingly fragmented media, the gap between them and who they are covering increased. As did the mistrust.

    I think Gary Cartwright is lamenting the death of the relationship between the sportwriter and his subject as much as he is the death of sportswriting itself.

20. Vasherized said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 7:33 am

    coolhorn and srr50,

    Dead. On.

    This is important stuff and I’m glad to see the discussion continue.

21. Art Vandelay said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 7:55 am

    “The television money means that the hype machine is in full bore from that media, and it means they sure as hell don’t want to spend any amount of time looking into what is wrong with the sport.”

    The BCS, NBA thugs (yes that means you Kenyon Martin), poor officiating in college and pro football and basketball, poor sportsmanship, refs on the take, beer companies, and steroid distributors thank you for looking the other way.

22. sold & delivered said:

    May 12th, 2009 at 2:29 pm

    “Gary Cartwright’s right, and wrong, about the absolute decline of writing skills these days.”

    Who cares about writing skills – and they probably have declined – but in today’s world one should be more concerned about the sudden and steep decline of basic mental intelligence. We live in a world where no one seems to be able to think originally (as in on their own) anymore.

    I say blame the fucking fall in mental aptitude on the clock. Once the clock proliferated on the scene, that spelled the death nell for the intelligent, think on your own man. Now people just repeat what the supposed experts in the whatever field spews out and they think – stupidly in my opinion – that this act somehow makes them smart and most certainly smarter than their less educated neighbors. Mental activity has been reduced to memorizing, as unquestioned truth, the pre-formulaic answers and thought patterns of someone else. Fitting, since it is just the analogy of modern mass production or fast food in the mental field.

    Yep, ever since the fucking clock, the mind of man has gone right into the shitter. Sure nowadays people who have bothered to educate themselves can sound more intelligent and has learned how to technologically do more specific tasks than any man in history, but when those two qualities are put to the side (after all who really cares about the shallow stuff aside from people whose only focus in life is to be two-faced) and only the essence of the man is looked upon, then modern man is unquestioned the dumbest, the most shallow, and the most immoral creature that has ever hit the face of the world.

    And the sad thing is that this disgrace of man and his mind is probably far from being over. The disintegration of mind will probably only continue to accelerate at a faster pace. T.V. has done untold damage to the pysche of man and if past trends are an indicator, the invention of the internet also will not ultimately turn out beneficial to the mind of man nor his character.

    Doubt if the invention of the computer is a good thing. The computer will eventually make mankind more expendable – afterall, think about where all the egos of those mathematically prideful engineers would have left to go once they realize they can easily be replaced and their nit picky activities done just as easily or moreso by a computer. People becoming ever more expendable and irrelevant is not a good thing. One only needs to be able to think about the scenario to understand this with a fair degree of clarity and certainty.

23. Thayer Evans said:

    May 13th, 2009 at 7:38 am

    I’m more than a little, surprised no one’s even mentioned me in this discussion.

24. coolhorn said:

    May 13th, 2009 at 3:22 pm

    Who cares about writing skills these days? I’d say a large percentage of the folks who post here, and at other sites.

    I don’t wear my feelings on my sleeve, but it insults me when someone writes a piece that, in essence, talks down to me. It bores me when they write a rehash of things they’ve said before, or when they show not even a spark of creativity in what they’re writing. It amazes me, and not in a good way, when major networks, major market newspapers, even national publications, allow writers to get away with words misspelled, grammatic and syntax errors, and other atrocious writing that wouldn’t have passed muster with my second grade teacher back in the day at Ross Elementary School.

    Sherrod, Shrake, and their peers made sports come alive to me when I was an impressionable kid. They were to newspapers what Kern Tips was to radio sports broadcasts.

    The absence of anyone these days with even the slightest interesting and unique take on sports is a big loss, one I care about. For the record, how someone writes, and speaks, speaks volumes about that person to others.

25. Valhalla Rising said:

    May 14th, 2009 at 11:50 am

    News about news from The Economist.

26. Facebook User said:

    May 14th, 2009 at 1:00 pm

    Good stuff, Valhalla. I read that article after clicking over from this blog on my iphone while I ate a burrito.

    
    

    …mobile devices may encourage them to do so. Apple’s iPhone is the first reader-friendly mobile phone, and the latest update to its software, due shortly, will enable news providers that currently give away content on the iPhone to start charging for it. Amazon has just unveiled a new, larger version of the Kindle, its e-book reader, better suited to displaying newspapers. Similar devices are available from other firms, with many more on the way. Better technology coupled with new payment systems will not solve the acute problems faced by newspapers today, but should eventually provide new models to enable news to flourish in the digital age.

    On micropayments and on the newsstand.

27. Valhalla Rising said:

    May 15th, 2009 at 12:13 pm

    ?Un burritto con sesos y lingua?

    Alas Sailor Ripley, whilst we steam towards our virtual existence, The NY Times has sounded the alarm that our mobile tethers will soon doom Mother Earth.

    http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/05/14/14climatewire-soaring-electricity-use-by-new-electronic-de-12208.html

    Ironic though, how they write this article ~virtually~ and yet use trees/paper to publish their daily rag. I suggest that they should cultivate a genetically engineered papyrus that is cold-tolerant, on the banks of Hudson, using a community co-op model for harvest and distribution. That way, when the reader buys the Times at Starbucks, they can sip their over-priced coffee knowing that the people who grew their beans and their paper, we treated humanely – and ultimately, feel as if they made a difference in this mean world.

    Sorry Scip, not sure that this relates Gary, Blackie, or Bud, but…

28. bendit said:

    May 16th, 2009 at 6:46 am

    Here’s one example of the new style of sportswriting that I think even Cartwright could appreciate. Malcolm Gladwell and Bill Simmons in a back-and-forth email exchange that covers topics from Larry Holmes to the full-court press in 9,000 words.

    http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090513/part1

    Gladwell’s not a sportswriter, but like Michael Lewis he focuses his insight and effortless storytelling on sports to tell a bigger story. And love him or hate him, Simmons is definitely entertaining.

29. hopefulhorn said:

    May 16th, 2009 at 10:15 am

    Terrific thread of the sort that makes BC such an oasis. I am more hopeful than Cartwright also, primarily from observing the growth of this blog and others like it. These new green shoots are fed by the hunger for perceptive commentary as well as a bit of fellowship.

    I agree with srr50’s take on the corrupting role of TV and its spawn–obscene amounts of money. I would add that along with athletes and leagues making so much more, you have sportswriters making less as their sponsoring publications get squeezed. In this case, you get what you pay for.

    I hope the future of sports journalism also sees more smart, articulate ex-players participating. One of the reasons Jenkins has stood alone, particularly as it pertains to writing on golf, is his history as a pretty fair player himself. Athlete-journalists not only speak from more direct experience but also from a deep-seated love of the game.

30. bendit said:

    May 20th, 2009 at 10:48 am

    Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle sends this letter to Texas Monthly in response to the Cartwright article.

31. Bob in Houston said:

    May 20th, 2009 at 11:07 am

    Justice nails something that I’ve wondered about for as long as I trained for and practiced journalism, which I will distill as, if those guys had such great stories to tell, why did so few of those stories get into the paper?

32. Spring Branch Horn said:

    May 21st, 2009 at 11:14 am

    SPeaking of Thayer Evans

    http://blogs.chron.com/everythingleaguecity/

33. tbone said:

    May 30th, 2009 at 5:22 am

    Re: NDS…

    I too grew up reading Sherrod and loving Lundquist and then Sham. It’s rare that i run into someone that understands my appreciation.

    I have a book of old Blackie Sherrod columns that I pull out and read from time to time. Great trip down memory lane.

34. ed said:

    June 2nd, 2009 at 4:55 pm

    Great stuff, everybody (there’s too many of you to call by name) . . .

    You’re writing about what was my profession. Spent 40 years in it. Lived it as a kid (Wash. Post), HS athlete who also called the SA papers with details, college hack writer. Went pro in the ink-stained business (line stolen directly from Blackie Sherrod). Served time as reporter, writer, columnist, editor, even sports editor.

    Now, I can hardly pick up a paper. I still love the concept, but the exection and presentation are abysmal. Soggy, day-old writing style, pablum for concepts and transmission of ideas and analysis. I see more exciting, interesting, on-point, thought-provoking stories in one day on this site, or BON, than I get in a week from the daily paper in Houston.

    Sad.

    But so is getting old.

35. Romeo Void said:

    June 11th, 2009 at 2:22 pm

    Its an interesting time we are all living in. I see advanced robotics on the horizon-mind movement>Doperbo>on the cusp.Planting the seeds of the 22nd c., everything is being turned on its head. Its a wild, wild west.

36. bendit said:

    June 17th, 2009 at 12:25 pm

    One of Cartwright’s contemporaries has no problem with the newfangled Interwebs. Dan Jenkins his ownself is now on Twitter and just killing it at the US Open. Apparently gd is for “Golf Digest” and now “Goddammit” like I hoped.

37. Vasherized said:

    June 17th, 2009 at 12:32 pm

    Arrived yesterday; out to the course this morning. After you’ve seen 199 majors, one practice round is plenty.

    Good point, Dan.

38. Geraldo Deviva said:

    March 2nd, 2010 at 5:39 am

    I enjoy your articles really often because they are written in an understandable coherent. So I can learn them although I come from Germany and have some problems to understand English stories.

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