This quote from a Sports Illustrated piece on Dustin Pedroia by Tom Verducci reminds us why sports writing is some of the best writing:
Strip away the television ratings, the attendance figures, the merchandise sales, the gambling, the beer ads and the rest of the variables that measure the import of professional sports in our culture. Think about what's left: how we connect emotionally with the games. On that level baseball, perhaps not in popularity but in esteem, occupies a unique place. It remains for many children the portal to organized sports, and if they're lucky, when they grow up they never stop seeing baseball through 10-year-old eyes. It is an uncomplicated, unchanged kid's game that does not require tremendous height or weight.
2 comments:
I think you’re right in saying that some of the best writing is on sports. When I saw the subject heading, I immediately thought of Grantland Rice’s famous column when Norte Dame defeated Army in the Knute Rockne era. It started like this:
“Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore their names are Death, Destruction, Pestilence, and Famine. But those are aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Crowley, Miller and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below.”
You're so right. What I love about sports writing is it comes with all the great plot, character and conflict necessary to drive a great story forward. It's drama is inherent and simply provides great opportunities for great writing, more so than, say, travel writing or even crime reporting.
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