RIP Milt Dunnell...legendary Toronto Star columnist dies at 102

[JR]

I'm surprised none of the Canuck sportswriters have posted this.

Wrote for the Toronto Star for fifty years.

Dave Perkins of the Star has a wonderful obit.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Obituary/article/290693

There was a time, though, in the auxiliary press box in the upper deck at the Metrodome in Minnesota, maybe 90 minutes before the World Series began in 1987. A handful of baseball writers had finished their plugger columns and were killing time with a little game: What was your favourite memory from the first World Series you covered?

It went around the circle and the younger guys talked about We-Are-Family in 1979, or Carlton Fisk's home run in '75. The older guys mentioned Bob Gibson and Mickey Lolich from 20 years before. Somebody saw Bill Mazeroski in 1960 and another old-timer spoke of the Brooklyn Dodgers and '55. Dunnell said nothing until prodded, knowing he would win this one by a landslide. He recounted how "Oom Paul" Derringer, a big righthander for the Cincinnati Reds, pitched two complete games, including Game 7. The year had been 1940.

And here's his piece on Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World"

http://www.thestar.com/Sports/article/289889

 

[poindexter]

He'd actually cost you two points on the death pool.

 

[wickedwritah]

Er ... http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/51289/.

 

[JR]

Er ... http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/51289/.

Big db. Sorry

 

[Football_Bat]

I'd love to read more stuff from 1951 on the innertubes.

That column was great. Kind of petered out funny. But it was 1951.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

A giant among sports writers, in every way.

Milt's Obit:
http://www.thestar.com/News/Obituary/article/290693

Milt on the Jays' first World Series win:
http://www.thestar.com/Sports/article/289893

Milt on Roberto Clemente:
http://www.thestar.com/Sports/article/289912

Milt on Bobby Thomson
http://www.thestar.com/Sports/article/289889

 

[JR]

Very nice column by the Globe's Stephen Brunt.

http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080104.wspt-brunt-col-04/GSStory/GlobeSports/home

As a writer, he was elegant and spare and to the point, perhaps less of a poet than some of his contemporaries in what was Canada's golden age of the ink-stained wretch, but always on the mark, always sharp, just about always right. And not a hint of narcissism.

In what would become increasingly a world of the easy, first-person opinion, Milt was a happy anachronism, believing the one word that should never appear under his byline was "I."

 

[Lucas Wiseman]

Given that there's already a thread on this topic, I'm locking this thread.

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/51289/