Furman Bisher on Dan Jenkins

Came across this on my morning perusal of clips...

http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/ajc/sportscolumns/entries/2007/05/29/writer_had_ring.html

 

Jenkins was so great when he wrote for Sports Illustrated, and even when he wrote Semi-Tough. Then he thought he was so great, and his books weren't any good anymore.

His football stories in SI were textbook, as were Tex Maule's. But I really thought Jenkins sucked after he wrote Semi-Tough.

Discuss............

 

Just my humble take, but I think Bisher is terribly overrated. I grew up in the South long ago (watch it), and I don't remember seeing much of a ``fastball.''


I seem to remember a story about Bisher getting in a fistfight at a rather advanced age with some camera guy, so I'll give him that. The column? Eh.

 

bisher was venerated in the southeast.
elsewhere, he didn't make much of an impression.

 

"You Gotta Play Hurt" is flat-out the funniest sports book ever.

 

Its semi-prequel, "Fast Copy," is pretty good too. Set mostly in the 1930s, when Jenkins was just getting started, and gives you a feeling of what it was like to work on a medium-small paper in those days.

 

So who's better: Dan Jenkins or Sally? Dad or daughter? Or do different eras make it too hard to say? Discuss...

 

Dad.

Daughter writes some good stuff, great stuff on occasion. But Dad set the bar.

 

Dan's sui generis. Better than any of his pale imitators, he hides his understanding of human nature inside laugh-out-loud jokes. Sally's the best working sports columnist today, but by degrees not by kind.

 

Speak for yourself, henry.
Fu'min had some fans up North, too.

 

Found this on a Dan Jenkins Amazon page:

"Dan Jenkins is a comic genius." —Don Imus

Not sure what it means, nor do I have time to figure it out.

 

I loved Life Its Ownself. Read that many times....