Best Sportswriter in the US,

Take your own advice.
I have a hard time understanding some folk here. The thread is the best sportswriter in the U.S. I happen to enjoy reading the work of these four columnists.
And people have a problem with that? WTF!!!!

 

You said three of the worst columnists. I named four. Who doesn't make your holy list?

 

We're having a national diabetes epidemic, so excessive sugar-coating is out of fashion.

 

You did not answer the question then. The question was who is the best sport writer not who are your favorite sports columnists?

 

My favorites: Dohrmann, Smith, Price and Merrill. I also think Wojnarowski does great, great work, but not sure I'd put him in the aforementioned class.

 

You're right Boom. I consider the question subjective. There is no one, in my opinion, who is the best. There are good ones that I enjoy reading. Those four are at the top of my list.

 

Nice.

 

It might be interesting to separate by sport

College football
College hoops
MLB
NFL
NHL
NBA
Boxing
Golf
Features/Enterprise
etc...

 

In terms of College Football/College Basketball, I'd have to put in a vote for Pat Forde.

As a DC guy, I'd have to say I'm a big Wilbon fan too, although I think he writes about broad national issues (read: NBA) too much. Shenin and Eric Prisbell both can write a pretty damn good feature as well.

 

I'd agree with that on Forde. I'm a huge fan of his, but when he veers away from college coverage, he appears way over his head. I kind of feel the same way about Gene Wojo. The college stuff is amazing, the other stuff, not so much.

 

I've been a way a really long time and frankly haven't read SI since Dan Jenkins was its star, so I don't know any of these people. Most daily sports columnists these days are one-dimensionally, reader-friendly tapdancers and even more shallow than they were in my day, a long time ago now. I still think Dave Kindred is the best sportswriter, ever. Robert Lipsyte, in his first turn at the NYT, was a close second, Red Smith third, Ira Berkow fourth, Dick Schaap fifth, Roger Angell sixth, Herb Wind seventh, Thomas Boswell eighth, Frank DeFord ninth and, em, Gary Cartwright 10th -- but these guys are/were real journalists as well as sportswriters, which folks in the toy department understand are not the same thing, even if readers don't.

 

When Charlie Pierce can take his politics out of his writing - he's damn good.

Bob Ryan also has to be mentioned.

As far as great info - Mike Lombardi has to be mentioned.