Furman Bisher's final column

Gee, what a shock ... one columnist during the Bryant era didn't kiss the old bastard's ass.
Fuck him and his houndstooth hat and his Golden Flake money and his Junction Boys (he would have gotten arrested for that crap right now) and his stockpiling football players on track and swimming scholarships and creating three generations of agnst for Alabama fans who think he's going to rise again. Thank God for Furman for not falling under the spell.

Enjoy your "retirement" Furman. Class act all the way. You always had kind words for any hack who wanted to chat or ask advice.

 

Met Furman at the Masters when he was president of the GWAA. What nobody's mentioned is that he sounds just like Foghorn Leghorn, the cartoon character. But he writes like a dream. And you just know that he'll pop up from time to time in the AJC. I hope.

 

I say, I say, you've hit that one right on the head.

 

As much as I respect the man for doing the job for so long and the institution that he is -- and believe me, I respect that -- count me among the non-fans of Bisher's writing.

I grew up in the Atlanta area and got to the point that I just couldn't read him anymore. I've recounted on other threads here that right before the Kentucky Derby, he invariably wrote a lame column in which he "interviewed" one of the horses (sometimes more than one, if I recall).

Oh, and I remember one night after a basketball game, a few reporters (including Furman and myself) were interviewing a coach and Furman began making statements about the team and the game and asking the coach, "Isn't that right?" The coach agreed with the statements. The next morning, Bisher quoted the coach making those statements in his column. The coach might have agreed, but he didn't say that.

OK, I'm sorry. Probably not the forum for that story. And, again, I very much respect the fact the man accomplished 30,000 times more than me in his career. And I understand many, many people loved to read his stuff. I'm just not one of them.

 

You look at the long list of major events he covered, the light, efficient tone with which he often wrote, the way he became a defining presence for a newspaper, a city, and a region -- Furman Bisher is the kind of sports columnist we all aspired to be.

 

Dude, jesus, calm down. I didnt attack the guy (or you). I simply said I didnt like his writing. What is your problem??

 

Anyone thinking Bryant was a saint must be wearing crimson-colored glasses.
The broad evidence more than indicates
he cultivated multiple personal habits which were in no way admirable. However, whether those habits translated
into making the SEP hack job come out anywhere near the truth is thoroughly
debatable.

But Bisher always had a hardon for Bear. So did the hierarchy at the SEP at the time, for some reason (would love to hear the inside of THAT particular story).

 

Just for you, hondo:

 

He can go pound sand too.

 

Because you admitted you had only read Furman for one year, and felt that was enough to pass judgement on a 60-year career. Know what you're talking about.
And I wasn't the only guy who called you out on this. Check back on page 1

 

That's right -- I admitted that I havent been reading his columns for the past 100 years. Does that mean that I can't possibly pass judgment on what I *have* read?? How does that make sense?

In the past few years, Bisher -- from what I've read and no I havent read absolutely everything -- sucked. Just because I havent read his stuff from the 60s doesnt make my point any less valid and doesnt give you the right to tell me to sthu.

 

I recognize Bisher's career legacy, but I think we can all agree he hung on too long and became largely irrelevant as a columnist. By the end, he no longer had his finger on the Atlanta sporting pulse, so to speak, and hadn't for many years.

One memorable example is the column he wrote this past May, in which he lamented that the Braves' farm system isn't what it used to be. Never mind the fact that this year, the organization produced both Baseball America's preseason No. 1 overall prospect (Tommy Hanson) and its midseason No. 1 overall prospect (Jason Heyward).

http://blogs.ajc.com/furman-bisher-blog/2009/05/02/braves-talent-on-the-farm-has-dried-up/