RIP Vic Ziegel

[gingerbread]

Vic, a longtime columnist and sports editor at the New York Daily News, passed away this morning, leaving wife Roberta and daughter Katy. It's an awful day for the many, many, many people who loved him, loved working with him and loved reading his wit and insight over the years.
His columns and personality never failed to bring a smile, no matter the subject, so maybe this will ease the sadness for a minute or so. It's Vic, on the joys of being a sportswriter:
http://www.evesmag.com/ziegel.htm

Here is one obit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/sports/24ziegel.html?_r=1

And here are the funeral details:
Sunday, 10 am, Schwartz Bros., 11403 Queens Blvd., Flushing.

 

[spnited]

Just terrible news. A guy with a great sense of humor and often made himself the target of that humor.
I believe when he was at the NY Post he once wrote this lede on a baseball game that took a few wild turns in the 9th inning (spoofing the Post's penchant for "exclusives.")

"The game is not over until the final out, the New York Post learned last night."

RIP, Vic.

 

[Small Town Guy]

Always enjoyed reading him in The Daily News. In their story, it says he wasn't a smoker but learned he had lung cancer in November.

This is really good, from The Times' story:

Covering the 2010 Belmont Stakes, Mr. Ziegel was not especially impressed by the long-shot winner.

“An unheralded horse named Drosselmeyer won the Belmont Stakes, the last leg, thankfully, of the Triple Crown,” he wrote. “That’s right, Drosselmeyer, pronounced Drosselmeyer, but not too often in the week before the race.”

“His winning time was 2:31.57,” Mr. Ziegel noted in concluding his article. “Secretariat, who won his Belmont in 2:24, would have beaten him by, oh, 40 lengths. Drosselmeyer must never be told.”

 

[finishthehat]

Loved to read him back in the day when I was a kid.

 

[spaceman]

Vic was a good man. That's all I got.

 

[Dr. Howard]

A fine and witty man who bridged the generations in this business. Didn't know him well but got a few laughs on the occasions I was around him. Very sad news.

 

[hondo]

Always enjoyed reading him in The Daily News. In their story, it says he wasn't a smoker but learned he had lung cancer in November.

This is really good, from The Times' story:

Covering the 2010 Belmont Stakes, Mr. Ziegel was not especially impressed by the long-shot winner.

“An unheralded horse named Drosselmeyer won the Belmont Stakes, the last leg, thankfully, of the Triple Crown,” he wrote. “That’s right, Drosselmeyer, pronounced Drosselmeyer, but not too often in the week before the race.”

“His winning time was 2:31.57,” Mr. Ziegel noted in concluding his article. “Secretariat, who won his Belmont in 2:24, would have beaten him by, oh, 40 lengths. Drosselmeyer must never be told.”

A helluva lead.

 

[gingerbread]

I adored most everyone I worked with at the Daily News, but I adored Vic the most.

These are brilliant:
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/2010/07/23/2010-07-23_fans_friends_and_colleagues_remember_longtime_daily_news_sports_writer_and_edito.html

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

Bondy's take:

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/columnists/bondy/index.html

 

[Michael Echan]

Wow. I met him just once, five years ago in the press cafeteria in Shea. I don't remember too much of the conversation, but he told me to keep busting my hump and never stop.

RIP

 

[derwood]

RIP.

 

[JohnnyChan]

We spend so much time ripping the egomaniacs of our business, I always want to make sure the record reflects that the overwhelming majority of the good people and great talents in our business are beyond generous and graceful. Three that I always cite are Dave Anderson, Jerry Izenberg and Vic, lions of the sportspage all three, remarkably willing to share wisdom, humor and insight. I remember not long after the Daily News launched its TV show on SNY, I asked Vic why I never saw him in there.

"Oh, you will," he said. "I was told by the producers that whenever an old-time boxer or baseball player dies, they'll have me on. I hope they don't make me wear the hood and sickle, too."

My favorite Vic story: one night during the 1994 NBA playoffs at Chicago Stadium, the Knicks were getting pummeled by the Bulls, and Vic was arm-wrestling the running deadline, and typing furiously, head down, steam out of his ears, and suddenly he hears the building go silent, he looks up, there's 1.8 seconds left and the Knicks have taken the lead.

"What the hell happened?" he asked.

So he went back to furiously typing. And as you have probably guessed, that's the game where Toni Kukoc hits his bank shot, the Bulls win, the Knicks lose, Vic exhales, and says before hitting the button: "See? Just like I said."

I miss him already.


-- Mike Vaccaro

 

[Football_Bat]

Always enjoyed reading him in The Daily News. In their story, it says he wasn't a smoker but learned he had lung cancer in November.

New York brownstones are notorious for non-smoking lung cancer cases. Usually radon gas.

 

[Drip]

RIP Mr. Ziegel.

 

[buckweaver]

Awful news.

RIP to a great, great man.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

This is dreadful news. My condolences to his family and to the family of sportswriters whom Vic graced with his presence. There was never a better working companion in the business. He was also an astonishingly good writer.

 

[SF_Express]

I never met him -- in our business, there's often a New York school and an Everyplace Else school, and I was from there -- but I obviously have heard about Vic multiple times over the years, and there's absolutely no doubt he was my kind of newspaper person and my kind of guy.

Thoughts and prayers for his friends and family.

 

[Harvey Araton]

When Vic -- whose work I worshipped growing up in New York -- was running the Daily News sports department and I was covering the NBA, he began to edit a back-page column for the paper's Sunday magazine. Write something, he told me. About what, I asked? Whatever, he said.
Tennis being my new-found passion, I wrote about a recent dream I'd had where I found myself in the semifinals of the US Open. The other semifinalists were Jimmy Connors, Bernard King and a kid I'd grown up with in the West Brighton projects on Staten Island. In the dream, I was all agitated because I drew Connors, when I'd wanted to play one of the other guys. The tournament director tried to calm me down by explaining that somebody had to play Connors, the draw was the draw.
The dream ended with me on court, warming up against Jimbo, nervous as hell but taking on the challenge. Later, it came to me what the dream was about: I was about to get engaged to my lovely wife Beth, I was frightened of change, and the three other players represented different times of my life -- the kid from Staten Island, King being the current star of the Knicks and Connors from the uncertain future. But at least, I reasoned, I was out there, going for it.
Wrote the piece for Vic, printed a copy, dropped it on his desk, walked out of his office. Five minutes later, he calls me back in. Love it, he says, and I have the perfect head for it, too. What's that, I say? He scribbles it on the top of the first page and hands it to me: "A Basket Case," it said. Loved the wit and wisdom almost as much as the man. -- Harvey Araton

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

Damn if Lupica didn't rise to the occasion:

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more_sports/2010/07/24/2010-07-24_we_lost_one_of_the_best_in_daily_news_vic_ziegel_a_character_and_a_gentleman.html

 

[playthrough]

That was a great remembrance, like everything else here. Interesting that Lupica ended that piece with "he is survived by that business," I read an obit not long ago (forget whose) that said something like "he was preceded in death by the newspaper business."