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RIP Art Rust

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by YankeeFan, Jan 14, 2010.

  1. Gold

    Gold Active Member

    RIP to Art Rust and sympathy to his family.

    That said, I have to disagree with the evaluation of his shows and the way he was with his show and writing the Strawberry biography.

    I read his book, "Get That Nigger Off The Field" and that was a good book which described his experiences going to major league games as a young African-American. I remember he did the weekend sportscasts on Channel 4 in New York, and yes, that was a break through. Once he broke through, I don't think he was much of a professional as a journalist or a straight shooter.

    In the Strawberry book, Strawberry wrote something about the negative feeling regarding race on the Mets. In the book, Strawberry supposedly wrote something like feeling like it was Dred Scott Stadium. A reporter asked Darryl who Dred Scott was, and Straw didn't know. That was a case of Art Rust writing this and pretty much making up a quote.

    His radio show by today's standards might seem civil, but he could be rude and abrupt with callers who disagreed with him. Yes, he knew sports history. Like Keith Olbermann, he seemed to have an attitude that he was the only one who knew sports history.

    His show also featured a disproportionate amount of boxing and very little about hockey. I always felt it was because that was what Art Rust knew about and was involved in.

    As for him paving the way for an all-sports station like WFAN - no way on the green earth. In those days, WABC had the Yankees and game broadcasts took up much of the evening schedule. WABC had a monster signal which could be heard in most of the eastern United States after dark. Art Rust would have been on WABC when WFAN went all sports, and WFAN didn't spend a lot of money at the start. Once WFAN got going, they really didn't need Rust. His lack of knowledge about sports other than baseball and boxing really wouldn't fit with an all-sports station. Dave Sims is an outstanding broadcaster and is always well prepared - the same couldn't be said about Rust.

    Art Rust isn't as lacking in integrity as Francesa, but I didn't think of Rust as someone who had a lot of integrity.
     
  2. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    Some interesting points made by Gold but the end result is still the same, Rust was a broadcast pioneer and Francesa is tool.
     
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