Michael Silver -- I just don't get it...

I agree completely...

Still not a huge fan of the drink thing, but it's growing on me a little...

 

Silver's a quality football writer who gets incredible access and seems to break news. But the way he interjects himself into stories is one of many of his writing tics that have always irked me about his features. Along with the bar and restaurant descriptions, gushing over players' wives (particularly Janet Elway back in the day), and making pop-culture analogies that always seem slightly dated -- not horribly dated, but enough to betray him a little.

Totally unrelated -- I remember an SI feature he did on Dan Marino several years back and they ran a pic of the Marino family at the dinner table. The dining-room mirror was in the background and you could see Silver's goofy, bespectacled reflection in it. I wonder if he pushed for that.

Overall, though, he's a talented writer, despite the occasional navel gazing and jock sniffing.

 

Relevant detail > detail.

 

Umm, Jmac, I always respect your opinion -- I just don't quite know what that means...please expand...

 

Relevant detail is greater than detail. There's nothing particularly revelatory about the subject's character in the mention of the drink.

 

HAH! I feel vindicated! Thanks JMac...

 

That kind of stuff is probably in the SI Stylebook. Their writers have been doing it for years. The point is not to convey important information but to establish yourself -- and the magazine -- in the picture. It's another way of saying: "We're important. We have access. We're standing next to This Famous Sports Figure (or sitting across the table from him at breakfast/lunch/dinner)." Another of my favorites: Mentioning that you're sitting in the front passenger seat as he drives back to his "crib" after practice. It's just house ad within a story -- and after you've read about a thousand references like that, often in the lead, it gets to be pretty comical.

 

We're encouraged to flaunt access when we get it and descriptive details can do that...

I'm a big Silver fan, but he's going a bit overboard here...

 

there's nothing wrong with what silver did.
he's just showing that the information he got is exclusive.
edge talking shop at a bar is much more sexier than edge talking shop at his locker.
journalists hate it, readers love it.
they dont care that silver put himself in the story. they dont even know that's an issue in the writing community.
as for the drink detail, i like it.
if peyton manning goes home and relaxes with a zima, i'd find that interesting.

 

Those breathless details come off as comical...and immature, if you're a reader over 25.

I clearly remember an A.J. Foyt profile maybe 30 years ago, a front-seater where the writer described Foyt's hands on the wheel, his fingers making a "million little corrections" as they drove. THAT's a meaningful detail that goes right to the heart of the subject.

 

No problem with the description of the drink. Better to be specific than to just say he had a drink in his hand. I don't know what Patron and Rosie's Lime Juice is, but that's my fault, not Silver's. Also, the fact that he's working on an apparently trendy drink, as opposed to a beer or a Jack Daniels or something, tells me a little about Edge.

The "I asked Joe Blow and Joe Blow told me," is eye-rolling stuff, though. Unnecessary and egotistical, and it has always been a drawback to Silver's writing. SI may have tolerated it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the guys at Yahoo actually encourage it. Expect Silver to go hog-wild with that stuff from now on.