Gary Smith probably doesn't read you

[friend of the friendless]

Mr *******,

It's an admission that only a hack or an amateur or an aesthete could sincerely make. If sincere, Smith has to the hindmost aforementioned.

YD&OHS, etc

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Maybe it's just because I'm such an omnivore.

 

[Joe Williams]

The man's written five stories for SI in the last year:
1) Omar Minaya - pretty good
2) Randy Shannon - decent, written in basically the same voice as the Minaya piece, and content to let the bizarre details of Shannon's life just sit there (the hermetically-sealed life, the estrangement from all friends and family).
3) Joba Chamberlain - overwritten, in my opinion
4) Jim Jones, Jr. - the decision to go second-person ruined it for me.
5) Gene Upshaw - wasted too much space with the ghosts metaphor, which overshadowed a basically interesting (though pro-Upshaw) take.

So basically his last four pieces haven't been up to his usual standards. And because he writes so sparingly, it's been 10 months since the last great Smith piece (in my opinion).

One home run every eight or 10 at-bats is awesome in baseball. And it would be pretty good in a writer, too -- if he went to the plate eight or 10 times in a shorter time frame. If Babe Ruth took eight at-bats a season, his one home run would not be worth a six-figure salary.

Not sure 52 at-bats a year was worth seven figures for Reilly, either. At least given his home-run rate the last couple of seasons.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

Bowden could write isosceles triangles around Smith, underwater, after a fifth of bourbon.

 

[WaylonJennings]

Bowden could write isosceles triangles around Smith, underwater, after a fifth of bourbon.

He has a book excerpt in the new SI, about the '58 NFL Championship Game.

Gotta love a guy who can go from writing "Blackhawk Down" to a book about football. Very Halberstam-esque.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

And a book about a cocaine impresario before that.

As Larry King says, "Gang, they don't come any better than him."

And, amazingly, they aren't the least bit vaudevillian, unlike, say, Gary Smith.

 

[WaylonJennings]

And a book about a cocaine impresario before that.

Escobar? I just saw the movie - "Medellin." Billy Chase directed it. I really loved "Queen's Boulevard," so I was expecting more.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

 

[Cousin Jeffrey]

Bowden could write isosceles triangles around Smith, underwater, after a fifth of bourbon.

He has a book excerpt in the new SI, about the '58 NFL Championship Game.

Gotta love a guy who can go from writing "Blackhawk Down" to a book about football. Very Halberstam-esque.

Bringing the Heat is one of the best sports books I've ever read.

 

[WaylonJennings]

As far as Smith's comment goes, I think I understand what he's getting at.

Here's a quote from an interview I read with Tom French, the St. Petersburg Times narrative journalist extraordinairre:

"A lot of the newspaper writers go home from the newsroom and they're carrying reports and books related to their beats. I think that is a terrible mistake. The best writers, I know, when they go home, they read something else. They really enjoy stories of all kinds. ... Why does a story work? Watch or read it and learn. Watch a soap opera and learn how they pace a show. Pick up a comic book and see why kids love comic books so much. I encourage people to read 'Harry Potter.' My first reason was I wanted ti know what everybody loved so much. But as I read them, I realized there was a lot to learn from J.K. Rowling. She really understands how to hold a reader by her side."

I think that's probably why Smith said what he did.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

That doesn't track.
Smith says he doesn't read sportswriting.
Why not?

 

[Grimace]

That doesn't track.
Smith says he doesn't read sportswriting.
Why not?

What he meant is that he only reads sports BLOGS!

 

[WaylonJennings]

That doesn't track.
Smith says he doesn't read sportswriting.
Why not?

I'm sure he reads narrative sports writing. My guess is he's reading Bowden's piece this week in SI, for example. But I doubt he's reading Joe Posnanski and Bill Plaschke and Bob Kravitz on a daily basis. Just not the type of writing he does. Smith wants to write nonfiction sports stories that read like fiction short stories. I'm quite sure he tailors his reading to advance that end.

 

[CentralIllinoisan]

I consider myself a decent sportswriter, and I think a lot of that is because I don't read a lot of sportswriting; I just don't enjoy it.

When I first started, I read the newspaper to learn style, structure, the basics. Now that I have that down, I have moved toward adopting my own flow and stayed away from reading current sportswriting. I'm interested to see if others do the same.

 

[BartonK]

Smith's got a new piece in this week's SI, on the "Fugees" soccer team in suburban Atlanta. Again, he uses second-person as a framing device.

Isn't this an old story? The AP had this almost a year ago:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=soccer&id=3021465

 

[Angola!]

I consider myself a decent sportswriter, and I think a lot of that is because I don't read a lot of sportswriting; I just don't enjoy it.

When I first started, I read the newspaper to learn style, structure, the basics. Now that I have that down, I have moved toward adopting my own flow and stayed away from reading current sportswriting. I'm interested to see if others do the same.

I know this is an old post, but I don't read much sports writing. Unless I am really interested in a subject - Yankees or Celtics - I rarely read it. If I'm in a random city I will tend to read the paper that day just to see how I stack up, but I certainly don't spend the first three hours of my day reading as much sports writing as I can.

I spend a lot more time reading novels than newspapers.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

LOL!

 

[friend of the friendless]

Mr K,

Smith's got a new piece in this week's SI, on the "Fugees" soccer team in suburban Atlanta. Again, he uses second-person as a framing device.

Isn't this an old story? The AP had this almost a year ago:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=soccer&id=3021465

At least he can't be accused of borrowing the idea if on principle he never read it before. Thus everything is original.

YD&OHS, etc

 

[Joe Williams]

Mr K,

Smith's got a new piece in this week's SI, on the "Fugees" soccer team in suburban Atlanta. Again, he uses second-person as a framing device.

Isn't this an old story? The AP had this almost a year ago:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=soccer&id=3021465

At least he can't be accused of borrowing the idea if on principle he never read it before. Thus everything is original.

YD&OHS, etc

I know it's good form and all to give a tip o' the cap to sources of our "ideas," but there really is no rule or even tradition of enforcing against such appropriating, is there? Plagiarism is the pilfering of actual words, in order and in significant chunks. But taking someone's story angle and then doing it -- better maybe, differently perhaps or maybe precisely the same but with original word play -- is just fine and dandy, right?

 

[friend of the friendless]

Mr Williams,

Mr K,

Smith's got a new piece in this week's SI, on the "Fugees" soccer team in suburban Atlanta. Again, he uses second-person as a framing device.

Isn't this an old story? The AP had this almost a year ago:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=soccer&id=3021465

At least he can't be accused of borrowing the idea if on principle he never read it before. Thus everything is original.

YD&OHS, etc

I know it's good form and all to give a tip o' the cap to sources of our "ideas," but there really is no rule or even tradition of enforcing against such appropriating, is there? Plagiarism is the pilfering of actual words, in order and in significant chunks. But taking someone's story angle and then doing it -- better maybe, differently perhaps or maybe precisely the same but with original word play -- is just fine and dandy, right?

My point is consistency, which you miss completely. There's nothing wrong with finding ideas in the stories of others. But he says he doesn't read sports. How can he tap other sources for ideas when he says he pays no heed to other sources? Obviously he's over-playing the above-it-all.

YD&OHS, etc