It never snows in Arlington, TX

We had eleven fracking inches of snow one night last February, after 3" or 4" on Christmas Eve. Of course the Series might be over before Christmas Eve. And I can only hope for 11 inches of snow on Super Bowl Sunday :)

This is much more amusing if one pictures Norm McDonald delivering these lines while doing his Larry King impression.

How is it possible to sound older and more out of touch than you actually are at the age of 91?

Is he really railing against Gay Talese? Yes, congratulations, Mr Antebellum South Name, you are older than dirt. Let another guy have his due. Gay Talese may not have shaped Bisher's sportswriting, but he did write a bunch of interesting books.

*****I read the other day for a writer named Gay Talese—and yes, I once knew him—who is said to have “shaped sports writing”. Nice fella, excellent, but beg your pardon, he never shaped mine—-nor a lot of others, such as the great Red Smith.

Jesus, that "writer named Gay Talese" is nearly 80 himself, and first wrote about sports for The New York Times 54 years ago. His 1966 Esquire essay on Joe Dimaggio remains one of the more celebrated portraits of an athlete ever writtern. Bisher might want to venture north of Sumter sometime before he dies.

EDIT: coke to Voxter

Talese's The Kingdom and the Power made me really want to be a journalist. Of course, actually being a journalist made me really not want to be a journalist, but that's not Talese's fault. I'm just lazy and feckless.

Is "Furman Bisher" the pen name for Andy Rooney?

Nolan Ryan began the season working for the Houston Astros and ends it in a box seat presidenting the Rangers and taking bows.

Nolan Ryan has spent the last three years as the Rangers team President. Has he EVER worked for the Astros?

Is "Furman Bisher" the pen name for Andy Rooney?

Abraham J. Simpson

Furman Bisher did interview Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe Jackson. A trifle more respect, please.

Furman Bisher did interview Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe Jackson. A trifle more respect, please.

We can salute his fine work during the Disraeli administration, while still saying he's being a total fuddy duddy during the David Cameron administration.

Is he really railing against Gay Talese? Yes, congratulations, Mr Antebellum South Name, you are older than dirt. Let another guy have his due. Gay Talese may not have shaped Bisher's sportswriting, but he did write a bunch of interesting books

No, he's not railing against Gay Talese. He's saying Red Smith had more influence as a sportswriter. He's probably right.

Furman Bisher is no Shirley Povich.

Furman Bisher did interview Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe Jackson. A trifle more respect, please.

That shouldn't have been too hard for a long-time Atlanta sportswriter, considering that Cobb was from Georgia and Jackson was from South Carolina, and that Cobb would usually give his caustic opinions to anyone who was within earshot.

Speaking for myself, my point about Bisher isn't that his own career shouldn't be respected, but that he might not opine so patronizingly about a man who in his sleep could write rings around him.

Furman Bisher did interview Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe Jackson. A trifle more respect, please

and he was there when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor

Furman Bisher did interview Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe Jackson. A trifle more respect, please.

That shouldn't have been too hard for a long-time Atlanta sportswriter, considering that Cobb was from Georgia and Jackson was from South Carolina, and that Cobb would usually give his caustic opinions to anyone who was within earshot.

Yeah, but Jackson generally didn't talk to newspapermen in his post-1919 life. Bisher deserves props for getting him on the record.

Nolan Ryan has spent the last three years as the Rangers team President. Has he EVER worked for the Astros?

Indirectly, as the part-owner of the Astros affiliate at Round Rock.

No, he's not railing against Gay Talese. He's saying Red Smith had more influence as a sportswriter. He's probably right.

I thought he was more specifically saying that Talese had no influence on Bisher's own career, which is certainly correct. Talese had no influence on Grantland Rice or Henry Chadwick, either.

Bisher deserves props for getting him on the record.

a pretty self-serving "interview"

I thought he was more specifically saying that Talese had no influence on Bisher's own career, which is certainly correct. Talese had no influence on Grantland Rice or Henry Chadwick, either.

He said both. Either way, the graph reads far more like praise for Red Smith than any kind of dismissal of Talese.

Indirectly, as the part-owner of the Astros affiliate at Round Rock.

And as a featured performer in their public exhibitions of athletic feats for several years.

Nolan Ryan has spent the last three years as the Rangers team President. Has he EVER worked for the Astros?

He pitched for them in the 80s (and maybe late 70s). :)

Either way, the graph reads far more like praise for Red Smith than any kind of dismissal of Talese.

To me, it reads exactly like a dismissal of Talese. There's no need to be a dick about one writer in order to praise another.

when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor

Germans?

Yeah, but Jackson generally didn't talk to newspapermen in his post-1919 life. Bisher deserves props for getting him on the record.

He does deserve credit for that, but Jackson wasn't a complete recluse. Prior to Bisher's 1949 interview, Jackson had granted at least three other interviews earlier in that decade to writers for The Sporting News.

To me, it reads exactly like a dismissal of Talese. There's no need to be a dick about one writer in order to praise another.

I agree with this. He only mentioned Talese for the purpose of saying that he wasn't as important as this thing he read allegedly claimed. That's the whole point of the sentence.

"Nice fella, excellent" is the equivalent of "No disrespect, but I am now going to disrespect you and it's ok because I said 'No disrespect'."

How is it possible to sound older and more out of touch than you actually are at the age of 91?

Oh I dunno, "knowing" Gay Talese back in the day would have been pretty avant garde even if no shaping occurred (though that's quite a thing to say about old Red.)

But of course, Gay isn't gay and knowing wasn't knowing back then and sometimes trying to understand what's passing through the mind of someone writing like this can require more or less interpretation than usual. Like how can the first game, which started fairly early and ran a relatively crisp 3:36, launch him on a "the World Series that never ends" jag? Ah, here we go: it was posted yesterday. See, he's not crazy, just cranking out crap for deadline like it was old times. "Rewrite! Rewrite! Oh hell, I'm not at the paper any more."

Germans?

Forget it, he's rolling.

They do have “blue northers,” though, and that’s worse than snow. “Blue northers” come with ice, and sometimes it’s two and three inches thick. Try driving on that.

Speaking as someone who lived in Saskatchewan for 5 winters...boo freakin' hoo.

"Nice fella, excellent" is the equivalent of "No disrespect, but I am now going to disrespect you and it's ok because I said 'No disrespect'."

Wow, I just don't see that. I see it as "excellent writer, nice guy," but not as important in influencing sportswriters as Red Smith. Which, besides being not terribly dismissive, is almost undeniably true as well.

I hope that folks are just acting like they don't get the 'Germans' reference.

He's saying Red Smith had more influence as a sportswriter.

Is he? The sentence, as written, says that Talese didn't influence him or others with Red Smith being one of the others not influenced by Talese. The second most logical interpretation of that sentence would seem to be that Bisher was influenced by neither Talese nor Smith (nor a lot of others).

It could just be sloppy writing (should have been "as much as the great Red Smith"). But then Smith was only 13 years older than Bisher -- would he have been prominent enough to influence Bisher during the period Bisher was being influenced? I'd have thought the most prominent sportswriter of Bisher's youth was Homer. :-)

It's a silly thing to debate anyway. When somebody claims that Talese (or Smith or whoever) shaped sportswriting, they aren't claiming that they influenced everybody and they rarely are claiming that they influenced people in their 90s. From Talese's wiki page:

He wrote for The New York Times in the early 1960s and helped to define literary journalism.

Bisher was 42 in 1960, nobody's claiming that Talese was a major influence on him and, the fact that he wasn't, doesn't mean that Talese didn't "shape sportswriting."

I was gonna snark about how long ago Bisher's grandmother was born but there's a good chance she was born only 20 years or so before my grandmother so I'll shut up about that!

I hope that folks are just acting like they don't get the 'Germans' reference.

Due to a confusion over who gets to claim they were the ones who proved Napoleon to be invincible (EDIT, whoops that should be NOT invincible...or maybe just "vincible"), my brother and I got into a fight when we were kids.
He was making a comic strip about Garfield at the Battle of Waterloo where the Russians finally beat Napoleon and I said that doesn't seem quite right.

We also once got into a fight over whether Cy Young had 501 wins or 511. We eventually had to resort to looking at his baseball card, which coincidentally someone had managed to deface just before our viewing, leaving the win total somewhat obscured.

It's a silly thing to debate anyway. When somebody claims that Talese (or Smith or whoever) shaped sportswriting, they aren't claiming that they influenced everybody and they rarely are claiming that they influenced people in their 90s.

Come to think of it, saying that someone "shaped sports writing" is not a compliment given the state of sports writing. People have been killed for lesser insults.

I hope that folks are just acting like they don't get the 'Germans' reference.

Steve: This is Primer. They got it.

Not only did they get it, they quoted the next two lines of dialogue.

Bluto: What? Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Otter: Germans?
Boon: Forget it, he's rolling.

when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor

Germans?

Pearl Harbor?

(And don't call me Shirley.)

I hope that folks are just acting like they don't get the 'Germans' reference.


Steve: This is Primer. They got it.

Not only did they get it, they quoted the next two lines of dialogue.

Bluto: What? Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Otter: Germans?
Boon: Forget it, he's rolling.

Irony of ironies, Steve didn't get the references!

Hey, I'm getting old and not quite as observant as I once was.