Started literally a couple weeks after V-J Day, when Minneapolis was still a minor-league outpost, and became pretty much synonymous with the entire region.
He certainly got crusty and craggy with the years, as we all do, but he earned it. And he did have some ethical and impartiality blemishes. Love him or hate him, you usually read his stuff, and that's what counts.
Kinda fitting that his apparent final story was basically a pretty standard pregame feature, not an overblown or maudlin farewell column. (Although I imagine once he reached 100, he might have put something together in advance on his own, to be used "whenever necessary." So maybe we'll see.)
But a workaday pregame feature -- that's what sportswriters do. Certainly he could have begged off and fobbed it off on somebody else, but he churned it out. Another day at the keyboard.
