When Did Sports Journalism Lose its Way?

In an ideal world, reporters would report facts/news, commentators would offer their opinions about the facts/news and entertainers would not pretend to be reporters or commentators. That ideal world never existed in reality, but there were times and places where it came closer to existing than it does in our current time and place.

The issue is much broader than sports, but here we will focus on the decline of sports journalism. Anyone under 45 years old probably does not remember that there was a time when Tony Kornheiser, Mike Wilbon and other television personalities were first-rate sportswriters/commentators.

Here is an example of an excellent Wilbon column: Lacy Leaves Towering Legacy.

Here is an example of an excellent Kornheiser column: Astros' Ryan Going Out In Glory, if Not a Blaze.

Wilbon, Kornheiser and other talented reporters and columnists traded in their newspaper bylines for the fame and riches they could acquire by screaming at each other on television. Maybe most people who were offered fame and riches would have made the same Faustian bargain, but the deal comes with a price--for them, and for us. I discussed this with Woody Paige more than a decade ago and he readily acknowledged that he did not derive the same satisfaction or meaning from appearing on television that he did from writing a great article or column.

T.J. Simers, a long-time co-panelist with Paige on ESPN's "Around the Horn," once said that he hated the show but "I hear a cash register going off in my head when I do it. TV makes us do this. They want us to be stupid, to try to top ourselves. On 'Around the Horn,' if you're low-key and sensible, you aren't going to be on the show anymore. You have to be over the top. ESPN will hire you for your credibility, but after a minute they've had enough of that...The producer is yelling 'Conflict! Conflict!' in your ear. TV wants conflict. TV wants outrageous opinions."

It does not have to be that way, though I do not have much hope that things will substantially change any time in the near future. ESPN and its imitators have dumbed down sports discourse, and there is no clear path out of the murky swamp back to dry, sane land. Many of the top sportswriters traded in their credibility for TV's cash, and as a result we are now cursed with both low quality TV and with a large amount of low quality sportswriting. There are very few great all-around sports writers now, as the few who know sports often lack writing chops and the few who have writing chops often do not know sports. Someone who has a deep understanding of sports--the strategy, the personalities, the psychology of competition--and the capacity to tell a coherent and compelling story is rare indeed. That combination has always been uncommon, but if you look at an old copy of Sport--particularly when it was edited by Dick Schaap--or Sports Illustrated you will find many articles and columns that are thoughtful and thought-provoking. Sadly, there is no publication or online site that has that cachet now, or that deserves it.

Speaking of Schaap, he was perhaps the first great sportswriter to transition successfully to television, but Schaap found a way to conform to the limitations of that medium while also retaining his intelligence and wit. When he hosted the Sports Reporters there was more light than heat--more substance than hot air, more intelligent debating as opposed to mindless screaming and bickering.

It is too much to expect anyone to be another Dick Schaap, but it should not be too much to expect writers to get their facts straight, commentators to provide intelligent opinions about those facts and TV personalities to scream less and think more. I hope that the general public is not as dumb as ESPN and its imitators think but I fear otherwise.

Rick Reilly's Fastball Still Hums

I'll be honest: there are very few people in this business who I truly respect for their writing abilities; I've dealt with a few nice people and far too many jerks but very, very few people in either category who can really write, who can make words sing and dance off of the page (or computer screen). A real writer sculpts his words like Rodin, paints a verbal picture like Van Gogh, composes his thoughts like Beethoven--but too much of what is being cranked out nowadays reads like it was hacked together by Edward Scissorhands or simply popped out unedited from the uneducated mind of a distracted child. Yeah, I read a lot less than I used to, because writing that truly engages your heart, mind and soul has become an endangered species.

Forgetting the "real world" for a second, in the sports world there used to be high quality writing in Sport, Inside Sports, the Sporting News and SI, plus periodic lengthy features in mags like Esquire and GQ. The first two of those no longer exist and the others are empty husks compared to their glory years. If you grab an old enough back issue of any of those titles, you can find work that stands the test of time. When was the last time you saved a sports mag because the writing was just so great?

A lot of the people whose writing I respect the most are, sadly, no longer with us.

Dick Schaap.

David Halberstam.

Ralph Wiley.

Read some of their writing and compare it to most of what is out there now and you want to cry. Seriously. Billy Joel was right:



Michael Hutchence's succinct take comes to mind, too: "You can stop the world and let off all the fools." Of course, the world keeps right on spinning and, last I checked, none of the fools have volunteered to leave.

I've heard some chatter that Rick Reilly--formerly of SI, now with ESPN--has lost some MPH off of his literary fastball. I'll admit that I cringe at some of the dog and pony garbage that ESPN has him doing. The sports' Mt. Rushmore? You hire a guy who basically retired the Sportswriter of the Year award--he only owns as many of them as Bill Russell has NBA championship rings--and that is the best forum you can create to showcase his talents? Really? Of course, they previously turned Tony Kornheiser--a truly top notch sportswriter in the 1970s and 1980s, one of my favorites--into a caricature on PTI and MNF, so I'm not really surprised. It's not like I'm crying crocodile tears for those guys, either; ESPN has helped make them as rich as Croesus, while I'm sitting here...just sitting here, definitely not rich as Croesus.

Anyway, if you bought into the fiction that Reilly's heater only hits about 85 on the gun now, then take a couple minutes and check this out:

Hey, pro, don't want to be a role model? It's not your choice.

Yes, Rick Reilly's fastball still hums. Hopefully, ESPN will let him throw it more often instead of using him in the equivalent of slow pitch celebrity softball.

Woody Paige Interview, Part II

While going through my archives, I found an unpublished gem: in October 2004, I interviewed Woody Paige for an article about Larry Miller, holder of the ABA' s single-game scoring record (that article was eventually published in the July 29, 2005 issue of Sports Collectors Digest; you can read a reprint of it here). Paige has spent a lot of time--and made a lot of money--convincing people that he is some kind of buffoon but his real personality is nothing at all like the character he plays on ESPN. I've never met Paige in person and I had never been in contact with him prior to this interview but he spent the better part of an hour talking to me about a wide range of subjects in addition to sharing his memories of Miller's record-setting game, which Paige covered as a young beat writer. You can read Part I of the interview here.

One of the most interesting things that I found out from Paige is how ambivalent he feels about the work that he does on television. His comments in this regard provide some interesting insight about the differences between being a writer and being a "personality." Long before Paige began appearing on TV, he wrote for several different newspapers and sports magazines, including Sport, which was arguably the best sports magazine in the country when Dick Schaap was its editor in the 1970s:

Paige: "I was a contributing editor at Sport for a couple of years. When I was a kid it was actually a more meaningful magazine than Sports Illustrated. I always wanted to write for Sport and I did it for a couple of years. A guy by the name of Roger Director was the managing editor. He has gone on to be the producer of a number of TV shows."

Friedman: "Didn't he do Moonlighting?"

Paige: "Moonlighting, yeah."

Friedman: "I remember that. Actually, I used to watch Moonlighting and then later on I got some old issues of Sport and I saw the name and I was wondering, 'Is this the same guy?'"

Paige: "Yeah. I did some work with him on Moonlighting. He had been fired by Sport and I made some calls for him and got him some interviews. He ended up in LA writing for a show called Bay City Blues, which was a spinoff from Hill Street Blues. It was about a minor league baseball team, before that became popular. It sort of died quickly and Bochco started Moonlighting and said, 'While you are out here, Roger, write for this.' That's how that all developed, because Roger was just a sports guy."

Friedman: "I saw this thing that Skip Bayless wrote on ESPN.com where he talked about the interchange that you and he have on Cold Pizza and how early (in the day) that starts and what all is involved in that and how it is a little bit of a different approach for him from being a newspaper guy and book writer and then being on TV. He talked about how when he writes something he composes it and gets all his points in but when he is interacting with you he is never sure if he is going to get in everything he wants to say. It's kind of interesting."

Paige: "Yeah. He doesn't (get in all his points). I think that frustrates him except I would say this--and he understands this--if he got in everything that he wants to say, nobody would watch it. People would get bored because he would have to say 30 minutes worth of stuff. It kind of works out well. At first I was trying to compete with him, but the guy does incredible research and is very passionate about it. Well, I'm not passionate about it at all. He does that stuff and I kind of listen. He never agrees with me. This morning I said, 'You know, you're absolutely right. I don't have anything to add to that. Why would I pile on top of that? That was great.' When he does that stuff, (sometimes) I'm like, 'OK, calm down.' This morning I threw a muppet puppet at him and spilled coffee on him or something. It's interesting. I guess it's like a minor league version of what Kornheiser and Wilbon do. It's a different time and a different part of ESPN and a different kind of show. It's all a different world (from writing) and I don't know if there will ever be the same kind of self-satisfaction in that. I told a friend of mine today that television is an entirely different animal. You'll write a story and you'll go, 'God, I nailed that lead' or 'I really thought that I researched Larry Miller and I know that and I did as well as I could.' Every morning when I get through with Cold Pizza I go, 'Well, I killed another two hours off.' I don't mean that in a bad way."

Friedman: "No, I understand."

Paige: "It's entertaining and informative but it doesn't have the same feeling--and it goes away. It goes away very quickly. At least, you can look a couple days later at your column or your freelance piece or whatever it might be. And at Around the Horn I've kind of become the resident goof on ESPN. That was a problem for me for a while, but today I talked to somebody who is in the hierarchy and that's whatever--well, I did my writing for a long time. I was a beat writer for a long time. People who I work with don't know that I actually covered beats for a long time. I guess they just assume that I came out of the womb writing columns. I did that (beat writing) and I wrote columns. I am doing this because it is another interesting challenge in my life."

Friedman: "Sure."

Paige: "I just think that whatever you are doing in life and what other people are doing, if you just don't try something different--I told somebody at ESPN that this is more important to Skip than it is to me. And I've known him since we were kids. He wants to make his mark on TV. I wanted to see if I could make this work. I don't know if this makes sense to you or not."

Friedman: "No, it does. It absolutely does. He wants to transition from writing to broadcasting. "

Paige: "I guess I'm trying to figure out, more than anything, why do they care if I am on TV? I'm at the end of my career and this is an interesting way for me to see if there is something interesting out there. I don't have to go, 'Wow, I'm now Dick Vitale,' or whoever it might be. I just want to see if there is a way that I can make this all work. Then I can go off and write books or--"

Friedman: "I get it. I understand. It's funny, a lot of times my Mom will watch Around the Horn and they will mute you or you are doing certain things and she will say, 'Why don't they let him talk? He must be so mad' and I say, 'Mom, that's the shtick. That's the way the show works. That's what he signed on for.' That's what you are doing. Like you said that you are the resident goof--that is a role that you are playing."

Paige: "Yeah, this is kind of funny-- I said to a guy today that Burt Reynolds, who does a show on ESPN Classic, said to a Vice President at ESPN, 'Is that guy really as goofy as he seems?' He said, 'What guy?' Reynolds said, 'The guy who is on everyday.' Jason Myers, who is a vice president at ESPN, said, 'Are you talking about Woody Paige? We don't know whether his personality in real life is him or that is really him. We're trying to figure out who is the real Woody Paige.' So I guess the good point is no one really knows whether I am a soft spoken, introspective person or if I am the goof that I play on TV. I create a character. Vitale is not the guy he (acts like on TV)--I don't want to make a comparison because I'm certainly not (as famous). Eighteen year old kids love us both--I don't know what that says about 18 year old kids. I'm doing Dan Reeves and nobody really ever got that. I am doing Dan Reeves and Don Meredith. My writing was an amalgamation of Kurt Vonnegut and Dan Jenkins and some Jim Murray thrown all together. I was trying to figure out how to do this character and Dan Reeves used to do this southern 'You guys' kind of thing--"

Friedman: '''Why do I have to straighten you guys out?'"

Paige: "Yeah. That's a line that Dan Reeves used to say. Dan and I talked about it. I saw him this summer and I said, 'You know, that's the line.' It was a line stolen from Dan Reeves. The guy who does 'Let's get ready to rumble' stole that line from Muhammad Ali and makes $10,000 every time he utters it."

Friedman: "Michael Buffer."

Paige: "Yeah. Dan and I talked about it. He used to say to me, 'Why do I always have to straighten you guys out?' It's a direct steal from him. There's a little Vitale and there's a little Don Meredith, a guy who doesn't seem to really care a lot. You put that all together...Before we go on the air we get a packet of research material and I'll tell my guild assistant, 'You know, I'm only four victories behind Mariotti.' I'm talking to my assistant but I know that Mariotti is listening to me. He'll go, 'No, I have 12 more wins than you do.' Well, I don't even know and don't care and everything else, but Mariotti knows exactly how many times he's been on the show and how many times he's won. Well, that's the character he plays--the character he plays is him."

Friedman: "It's very easy to needle him about it because he is taking it very seriously."

Paige: "Yeah, the guy who is the executive producer said that (Mariotti) is like a human pinata for me. That's really the truth. I can just bang on him and bang on him and bang on him and he doesn't quite get it. You create a character and that's the interesting thing. I was a columnist for whatever (many years) and I thought that I was a good writer and I think that I am still a good writer but I didn't make a national mark--I did as an ABA writer. I think at least as a TV guy that I have created something that is interesting to me. So Skip and I are kind of enjoying this--we'd enjoy this a lot more if we got to sleep. If we got more sleep this would be fun. He kind of needs me to temper his incredible heat and passion, which surprised me. (There are) two things in his life--working out and sports. He said this morning that he had watched every Oklahoma game. Well, I believe that. The thing about me is I've watched maybe two minutes of Oklahoma this year. So we come from totally different perspectives."

Friedman: "Right. He's so passionate and fired up and has got all his ducks in a row of what he wants to say and you are shooting from the hip."

Paige: "Yeah. That's the thing about it. I told him that I tend to work without a net. He does hours of research. I do maybe six minutes (laughs). I go in there and at the end of the program today they say, 'What's your extra point?' I say, 'I don't know. I'll figure it out.' I don't get timed. I do four sentences. He can have my time, because I can make my point in five seconds."

Friedman: "I really appreciate the time you've taken. I appreciate the insights that you have given me into the business and your experiences. I do enjoy watching you on TV. My Mom watches and she's not a sports fan. She always says that they should give Woody more time. She loves hearing whatever you have to say."

Paige: "I really appreciate that and she's absolutely right."

Friedman: "I'll tell her you said so."

Paige: "Great."

Bobby Fischer's Mixed Legacy

I was surprised and saddened to learn that former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer passed away on Thursday at the age of 64. Actually, I was also a little surprised by how saddened the news made me. I never met the man and it is difficult to forget the glee that he expressed about the 9/11 attacks. I greatly respect Fischer's artistry and brilliance as a chess player but it's been a long time since he publicly displayed those qualities and it seemed doubtful that he ever would again. So why did I feel so sad to hear of his death? Emotions cannot really be explained or justified but after reflecting about this I think I understand the causes for my gut reaction: Bobby Fischer's death closes the book on any possibility that he will either play brilliant chess again or that he will recant some of the despicable comments that he said about America and Jews. Of course, from a purely rational standpoint it is easy to see that the likelihood of either of those things ever happening was exceedingly remote but now that he is gone his legacy--for better or worse--is complete.

The "better" part of Fischer's legacy--his contributions to the game of chess--will never be forgotten. He set many records and achieved many incredible feats, including becoming the youngest Grandmaster ever (age 15; that mark has since been broken by youngsters who train with computers, an advantage that Fischer did not have), becoming the youngest U.S. Champion ever (age 14), winning eight U.S. championships while losing only three games total and achieving a remarkable 11/11 result in the 1964 championship, winning 20 straight games against elite level Grandmaster opponents and winning the World Championship in 1972 by defeating Boris Spassky with a 12.5-8.5 score that included a game that Fischer forfeited by not showing up because he was not satisfied with the playing conditions. Fischer's record for the highest rating of all-time has since been broken but when Fischer was the top rated player he was further ahead of his contemporaries than any chess player has been in at least the past 150 years (dating back to when Paul Morphy, the first great American chess player, dominated the chess world briefly before he, like Fischer, faded into obscurity); the rating is just a number that only has meaning in comparison with other ratings and Fischer's dominance over even the other elite players of his day is amazing.

Fischer once declared that he was battling alone against what he called "the lying, cheating, hypocritical Russians," a statement that turned out to be largely true even if it sounded paranoid. For years, Fischer studied chess for hours and hours a day, learning several foreign languages so that he could read the top chess journals and books from around the world; he reintroduced old ideas that had been forgotten or considered unsound and he also came up with innovative new ideas. The top Soviet players were provided with state stipends and worked together in an organized fashion in order to maximize the chance that one of their number would always retain the world title; the Soviet Union could not compete with the West economically, scientifically or in many other ways but chess and Olympic sports were two areas that the Soviets sought to dominate in order to "prove" the superiority of communism over capitalism. It is no exaggeration to say that one lone American genius, by virtue of his talent, willpower and tenacity, overcame the collective efforts of the Soviets and wrested the World Championship from them after they controlled it for a quarter century. Fischer's will to win was legendary and induced a condition known as "Fischer fear" in his opponents; he quite openly stated that he was trying to crush his opponents and break their will and many of them spoke of the enormous psychological pressure that they felt when competing against such a talented, thoroughly prepared player who disdained draws and fought throughout every game with relentless fury until the bitter end: if you play competitive chess then you know exactly what I am talking about but if you don't, just think of Bill Belichick's New England Patriots and Tom Brady frankly saying, "We're trying to kill teams." Fischer combined Belichick's meticulous preparation with Brady's ability to stay focused and execute under pressure. Even if you don't know chess from checkers you have to appreciate any champion who hones his game to this extent.

Fischer's meteoric rise to the World Championship spawned a chess boom in the United States and put the game on the front pages of national magazines and newspapers and earned him guest appearances on mainstream talk shows. Like Tiger Woods--but to a smaller degree--Fischer's emergence resulted in bigger prize funds and elevated the status of his game among the general populace. Unfortunately, the "Fischer boom" went bust as its namesake never again played an officially sanctioned tournament or match game after his 1972 triumph (his famous 1992 "rematch" with Spassky was not sanctioned by FIDE, the world chess federation, and actually got Fischer into trouble with the U.S. government for violating trade sanctions against Yugoslavia). Fischer had vowed to not only break Emanuel Lasker's record and hold the world title for more than 27 years but he said that he would not duck any challengers and would put the title up for grabs regularly. He did neither of those things; Fischer, arguably the greatest player in the history of the game, reigned as World Champion for just three years before giving up the championship without playing a game because of disputes over playing conditions and the terms for a championship match. Fischer spent most of his remaining three decades as a recluse, periodically emerging to issue hateful statements, mainly directed against America and Jews; the man who had received a hero's welcome in America for defeating a Soviet champion turned completely against his own national and ethnic heritage. Other than his 1992 victory over Spassky--which included a few brilliant games and others that were ordinary by Grandmaster standards--Fischer had just two positive accomplishments during this period: he received a patent for the digital time delay clock that has become standard fare in chess tournaments and he invented a new form of chess that he called "Fischer Random" that he declared to be superior to the original game, which he considered to be outdated.

The "worse" part of Fischer's legacy reared its ugly head even when he was on top of the chess world, although his closest confidantes did the best that they could to both modify Fischer's conduct and make sure that press coverage of him focused on his remarkable abilities as a player. The forfeited game that almost scuttled the 1972 match was not an isolated incident for Fischer. He often feuded with organizers, sometimes justifiably so--playing conditions for even world class players were not great early in Fischer's career--but sometimes over things that seemed trivial or bizarre; Fischer might have captured the world title several years before he did if he had not stormed out of a qualifying tournament in a huff despite owning a commanding lead that all but assured a victory that would have placed him on the brink of challenging for the crown. Although it is often suggested that something went wrong with Fischer after he won the World Championship in 1972, he made strange statements during interviews and in private conversations years before that. His paranoia and growing anti-Semitism were evident for quite some time but it does seem like those features of his personality became more prominent as he got older.

Some people will say that Fischer should only be remembered as a brilliant chess player and that everything else should be forgotten; other people will say that Fischer's hate speech (and there is no other appropriate term for it) negates what he accomplished. Both of these viewpoints are wrong: it is true that Fischer's greatness as a chess player deserves to be honored but it is also true that his statements have irrevocably tainted and tarnished his name, if not his legacy. When terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center and attacked the Pentagon on 9/11, Fischer said that this was "wonderful" and he hoped that the United States would be destroyed. Those are not statements of political dissent; he expressed glee at the thought of innocent civilians being slaughtered by people who believe that the rest of the world must submit to their belief system or be killed. This is not a right wing issue or a left wing issue; if you believe that there is justification to deliberately kill thousands of innocent civilians then you have stepped well beyond the bounds of civil and rational discourse. It is entirely reasonable to disagree with America's foreign policy but it is quite another thing to openly hope for America's downfall and to celebrate a horrific crime. America is far from perfect but it is worth remembering that America has to build fences to keep people out, while historically her enemies have had to build fences to keep people from leaving--that is a pretty handy measure of whether or not a country is repressive; you can also use the "public square" test: in America you have the freedom to stand in a public square and express disagreement with the current government, an option that does not exist in the countries that Fischer and others laud at America's expense, countries where people are routinely jailed or killed for attempting to speak freely, support opposing political parties or worship a minority religion.

While Fischer's chess games contained an inner harmony and logic befitting an Einstein equation or a Mozart symphony, there was no order or logic to his political beliefs. Indeed, he called anyone who he considered to be an enemy a Jew--even if the person was not Jewish--and yet he had cordial relations over the years with a number of people who were in fact Jewish, including the famous Polgar sisters. It seems very likely that Fischer's anti-America and anti-Semitic statements resulted from mental illness--as opposed to the carefully thought out, malevolent world view of someone like Osama bin Laden--but that does not diminish the harm that is caused when someone of Fischer's prominence publicly says such horrible things. I have never seen Leni Riefenstahl's infamous film Triumph of the Will but it is considered to be an aesthetic and cinematic masterpiece; however, it is impossible to separate the quality of the art from the fact that she was figuratively--and possibly literally--in bed with Adolf Hitler, one of the most evil tyrants who lived. Her art was created specifically to serve evil purposes, while Fischer's art does exist separately from his hate speech, but that hate speech is nevertheless a permanent part of Fischer's overall legacy; Fischer even said that he did not want to be viewed as merely a chess genius because he thought that he had significant things to say about other issues. Ironically, Fischer accused fellow former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov of merely being a chess genius who knows nothing about anything else, even though Kasparov is a political columnist for the Wall Street Journal and a political activist in his native Russia.

Fischer cannot simply be remembered as a great chess player, nor is it fair to characterize him as nothing more than a hate monger. His chess legacy is eternal, as is the taint that he placed on his own name and reputation. Now that Fischer is gone and can say or do nothing else, that is how the matter will always rest.

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Postscript:

One story about Bobby Fischer that captivated me years ago described how he almost met Wilt Chamberlain. The great writer Dick Schaap, who knew both champions, tried to arrange for Fischer to meet him and Chamberlain at Chamberlain's home but Fischer declined. More than 20 years ago, Sports Illustrated's William Nack wrote about this incident. Schaap later mentioned it in his autobiography Flashing Before my Eyes. This anecdote combines basketball, chess and writing and involves three people who I would have been interested to meet (and who have all since passed away, unfortunately), so it understandably made an impression on me. Over a year ago, I wrote a short story based on the premise that Chamberlain and Fischer did in fact meet each other: Not A Random Encounter. Keep in mind that this is a work of fiction.