Inside the world of Sid Hartman

Reminds me of Stan May, crusty old SE at the Superior Telegram. Yelled at me to "Get outta my fucking chair" at a women's basketball game. I promptly did so.

 

I don't think people are afraid of him, and haven't been for, I don't know, 30-plus years, if they ever were. He's just such a unique guy with a unique career that it's hard to sort of encapsulate what makes Sid...Sid. That's why I really enjoyed this feature because it did get at everything. Hating Sid has been a longtime passion of other writers, listeners and readers in Minnesota for decades. Reusse, his longtime foil, colleague, friend, rival (and ghostwriter of his book), definitely isn't afraid of him and rips on him openly and publicly and always has. His longtime Sunday TV show, the host and other panelists constantly challenged him and ripped on him. His radio co-hosts over the decades, same thing.

He's been a scoop machine for literally 8 decades because, for all his flaws, he's a dogged reporter. He's always been a pure reporter, with the writing just sort of being the end result. But as the story noted it wasn't fear of Sid that helped him get those scoops; a lot of it was his tight relationships with his "close, personal friends" who certainly weren't afraid of him because they knew he'd, almost always, take care of him. And he got his other scoops from just old-fashion hard work and working every angle and source. But with all that I don't think fear of Sid drove a lot of it.

@Machine Head might have different thoughts on it but that's kind of how I view it.

 

He clearly has the right amount of don't-give-a-fuck that has always been necessary for success as a reporter.

 

The only brush I ever had with Sid was at a hockey game in the Target Center. We were up in these absurdly high seats at a sharp angle, so you had to sit up and almost lean over the press table.

He seemed none too pleased and went rummaging. Came back with one of those enormous toilet paper rolls you have in office bathrooms and used it as a booster seat. Quite a sight.

 

He sounds like a miserable, fucking prick who scratched and clawed and fought his way to the apex and has no intention of stepping down.

And money. Don't forget money.
That helps.

 

If he's bitching about people being jealous of him, he quite clearly does give a fuck.

 

My grandfather was born in 1912. In 1944 or early 1945 he started with the Cowles owned Minneapolis morning paper, mostly working on the copy desk. I don't know if the morning paper was the Star or Tribine. Would he have possibly edited Hartman?

Hartman's Wikipedia entry says he started at the Minneapolis Daily Times, of which there is no Wikipedia entry before he went to work for the Cowles papers. Does anyone know if he would have edited Hartman.

 

My memory starts in the 60s and the Tribune was the morning paper at that time.

Edit: Email Sid or the Strib and ask about your grandfather.

 

If the world is still spinning in 30 years, we'll be reading a similar type of story about Lupica.

Which, given the press box seating stories in this thread, reminds me of Lupica at Fenway about 15 years ago. The Fenway press box is this weirdly sloped four-row box (at least it was the last time I was there) and your view of the field gets much worse with every row. Lupica sees he's on row four, with slackdicks like me. He gazes down, sees the Daily News beat writer sitting in the front row in the lone reserved Daily News seat, the seat he believes should be his seat. Lupica yells "Hey (beat writer), enjoying your seat?" And then (beat writer) was sitting in the same row as me and Lupica had the front row.

 

First time I saw Lupica in action, he was complaining about his seat.

 

I only saw Lupica once in a press box. He bitched to some staffer about not being in a good enough seat. They moved him.

 

First time I saw Lupica, he was giving me an autograph. Calm down everyone, I was a teenager and he was in a celebrity pro-am at a tennis tournament in Connecticut. I drove down there by myself (a big deal, back in the day) and told him as he was signing my program he'd inspired me to become a sportswriter. He said thank you and to keep working hard. I was young and naive and wouldn't it be nice to go back to those days?