Sports Biblio Digest, 4.28.19: The Enduring Enthusiasms of Bob Ryan
News, Views and Reviews About Sports Books, History and Culture
Also In This Issue: How John Havlicek Played Basketball; Life After Sportswriting; Party Life at the Hahnenkamm; W.P. Kinsella; Curt Flood; The Man Who Built Britain’s Football Grounds; A Workaday Boxing Memoir; Remembering Johnny Neumann and Tony Tomsic
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What a warm, genial, funny and passionate companion Bob Ryan has been to anyone wishing to read more than a half-century’s worth of his dispatches from the world of sports, and Boston sports in particular.
If one cares to go back to his 1950s childhood in Trenton, New Jersey, it’s longer than that, and stretches back for a good portion of the post-World War II era.
Ryan’s career as a writer and columnist for the Boston Globe, and some side interests including his passion for jazz, form the focus of his 2014 memoir, “Scribe: My Life in Sports.”
But the semi-retired Ryan is no predictable Baby Boomer in his disposition on the games that enrapture most Americans (and others we pay attention to during the Olympics every four years).
While he frowns on some of the jaded developments in sports (how college athletes are taken advantage of, the existential crisis of football, etc.), he’s a mostly stick-to-sports figure who understands the desires of his readers, viewers and listeners seeking a respite from the daily grind of their own lives, and the dispiriting headlines of more serious topics.
That’s because Ryan, unlike many of his peers, especially those he's opined with on the long-running “Sports Reporters” program on ESPN, has never taken himself too seriously. Even after all these years, sports are fun for him. He hasn’t let himself get too cynical, or tee off on politics, or spout madly about other things in an attempt to find some greater relevance. As he writes near the end of his book:
“I love sports and I want people to know it. I’d like to think the word most people associate with me is ‘enthusiasm.’ Give me a good game, and I’ll be happy; as a fan I may regret the outcome, but as a journalist I’ll appreciate the drama.”
Working in an obsessive sports market like Boston, he’s never had to grasp to find subject matter, and those willing to give him a read, or lend an ear.
Ryan is a prime example of a sports journalist who smoothly incorporated television and other media appearances into his mostly-print work, but never forgot about what got him to where he is.
That upbringing, in a close-knit Catholic family (his father died when he was 11) opened up the door to a world he couldn’t have imagined as a crew-cut young lad.
Ryan devotes part of an opening chapter to his educational regimen, and in particular the reading, and later writing, for his high school newspaper, that earned him the nickname “The Scribe” from the head football coach:
“Writing, writing, writing. Essays, essays, essays. That’s the way it was in English, history, and any form of social studies. . . . I benefited from the general atmosphere of achievement and inherent competition.”
It was more of the same at Boston College, where he interviewed Celtics coach Red Auerbach, scouting a game. At the time, Ryan had no idea how enmeshed his work would become in chronicling that franchise’s historic greatness, including what he witnessed courtside at Boston Garden.
He started at the Globe as soon as he graduated, in 1968, married his college sweetheart, and raised two children as he watched the Celtics' transition to the Larry Bird era, and his own professional transition in front of the camera: “The TV exposure definitely changed my life."
His fame, however, was sealed by his brilliance at the game story, and as Bryan Curtis wrote for Grantland, in finding his place as a writer without following any other footsteps:
“To be a basketball writer on the Globe was to be free of history. There was no Ghost of the Bambino demanding tribute. No lilting style flowing from the veins of Red Smith. As former Philadelphia Bulletin writer Mark Heisler noted, there were so few columnists going to NBA games that the beat writer became the columnist. Every night, as Ryan searched for his lede, he was doing the work of two journalists.”
Ryan eventually covered many Olympiads, and was grateful for how it got him outside of “the shamefully parochial” sports worldview of many Americans.
The 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, where the USA “Dream Team” crushed the world, was seen by some as a clear example of American attitudes of sports exceptionalism, but Ryan saw it differently:
“USA dominance, far from a problem, was totally welcome. Believe me on this, please: the theme of the entire 1992 Olympic basketball experience for the rest of the world was ‘Beat Me, Whip Me, Take My Picture.' ”
It also led to the globalization of basketball, as many of the best players from around the world came to play in an NBA that’s as diverse nationally today as many of the best soccer clubs.
One of those who didn’t come was Oscar Schmidt, the prolific Brazilian whom Ryan said was “just too sweet, too human, to get caught up in the cutthroat NBA world."
In the book’s photo collection, Ryan’s affably posing with Schmidt, as he does with other athletes and sports figures he covered, including Bird and Magic Johnson. “If the house is burning down, this gets saved first,” Ryan writes in the caption.
That he regards many of these people as friends is a fading dynamic in American sports media these days, but Ryan’s untroubled by that. His genuine affection for sports, and the people who are part of them, is real.
Women’s basketball and minor league baseball also have endearing qualities for him:
“I don’t have time for males who don’t have time for women’s basketball. If you need dunks and a game played in the air then you have a very limited concept of what constitutes proper basketball. I’m sorry, but after a while dunks get old. To me, if you truly love basketball, you can appreciate it at all levels.”
Basketball is basketball, and sports is sports for Ryan, who weighs in on the Michael Jordan-LeBron James GOAT argument, and riffs on jazz, his favorite music.
When I met Ryan at the Sydney Olympics basketball venue in 2000, he introduced himself to me and said he appreciated my work (I was a contributor to Basketball Times, where he still writes).
For anyone struck by how big-hearted Ryan is with his prose and on television, I can tell you he’s really like that in person too. He doesn’t spend too much time in “Scribe” wistfully wondering what might have been, and mentions in passing his late son in the acknowledgements. Ryan does ruminate on what his late father may have made of how his only child turned out:
“I think my father would have loved the course of my career. I am, quite frankly, extremely envious of my colleagues who have been able to share their own experiences with their sports-loving dads. My father didn’t live long enough to see me in a Little League All-Star Game, let alone see me play varsity basketball, head off to an Olympics, or co-author a book with Bob Cousy. I’d like to think he’d have been impressed with that."
Hondo for the Ages
Bob Ryan said the memoir he ghosted for John Havlicek “is not a great book, but it’s a good one.” The Boston Celtics legend, who died this week at the age of 79, “was never going to be controversial. He wasn’t out to drill anybody. He had a positive, upward-mobility story to tell."
That’s a writer’s frustration, to be sure, but “Hondo: Celtic Man in Motion,” published in 1977, excels at revealing how the all-time Celtics scoring leader (26,395 points, more than Larry Bird, Robert Parish, Paul Pierce, etc.), part of eight NBA title teams, came to be what Ryan calls:
“The very best basketball player of his time, period. I’ll repeat that. John Havlicek played in the NBA from 1962 through 1978 and during that time no non-center was better. Better than the vaunted Big O? Better than Mr. Clutch, Jerry West? Better than Dr. J? That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m taking John Havlicek over all of them.”
“Furthermore, given his off-the-charts athleticism, intelligence, and adaptability, there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that if he played in today’s game, he would flourish to the exact same degree.”
Havlicek did all this with a relentless work ethic on both ends of the floor. Moving without the ball on offense was the locus of his genius, but even on defense he looked smooth and effortless, a linchpin in a Celtics dynasty, initially for Red Auerbach, that came to embody his ethos.
His former teammates recalled his “quiet greatness,” in the words of Dave Cowens, part of several Celtics NBA title teams in the 70s.
In his remembrance Saturday, Ryan again wished he could have done better with the Hondo book, and said Havlicek being dubbed the best sixth-man in NBA history “does him a grave disservice.”
More from Ryan here on the Boston-based It’s Only A Game radio program.
On Saturday night, the Boston Bruins honored Havlicek before their Stanley Cup playoff game, not with a moment of silence, but with unfettered applause.
Havlicek, who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, recently was hospitalized with pneumonia. His wife Beth released this statement after Havlicek’s passing, saying her husband was “the captain of our team.”
A Few Good Reads
John Walters, an acquaintance from my days covering women’s basketball and part of the growing Sports Illustrated diaspora and other media stops, has found that life after sportswriting is marvelous, especially his second career as a waiter:
“I feel blessed. Serving, not having a job that gets you an approving eyebrow raise from a stranger at an airport bar, has given me a sense of humility. Of empathy. Of understanding that all of the outer trappings are only that.”
I couldn’t agree more. John puts words together as well as anyone and it’s a shame he wasn’t better known when at SI. I highly recommend “The Same River Twice,” his 2002 book about the UConn women’s basketball team when it was entering the realm of dynasty;
Bill Rhoden writes about Curt Flood, 50 years after he took on baseball’s reserve clause and sacrificed his career, and thinks his stature should be right there with Jackie Robinson;
The Shadow League examines a new documentary about Willie O’Ree, who broke the NHL’s color line and continues to inspire hockey players of color;
Baseball’s unwritten rules are the subject of a new book that reflects the underbelly of some not-so-edifying traditions. Steve Goldman, host of The Infinite Inning podcast, says they’re worth another look given the bat-flipping controversies of Tim Anderson of the White Sox;
Former Cubs Cy Young winner and current White Sox broadcaster Steve Stone admits his knack for frequently spotting what’s going to happen in a game moments before it does makes him a “psychic;”
Flinder Boyd visits Michael Sam, the first openly gay NFL draft pick, who’s put the game behind him as he tries to find happiness in his life;
Hahnenkamm is the most dangerous ski slope in the world, but many of those who come to the fashionable Austrian resort town of Kitzbühel aren't necessarily there for the racing;
At the BBC, a retrospective appreciation of Archibald Leitch, the architect responsible for many of Britain’s famous soccer stadiums;
What’s called “the good-bloke” rule is giving Australian cricket an ugly reputation, writes Jarrod Kimber, a cricket writer and filmmaker, in his latest jab at the sport’s establishment Down Under.
Reviews and Releases
Newly released in the United States is “Going the Distance,” a biography of W.P. Kinsella, originally published last year in Canada by Douglas & MacIntyre. Author William Steele, an English professor at Lipscomb College, discusses how he put the book together, and his favorites of Kinsella’s bibliography;
Paul Beston, (author of “The Boxing Kings”) reviews “Punching from the Shadows,” a 2018 memoir by workaday boxer Glen Sharp, calling the book “a testament to the hard-won wisdom that only loss seems to impart, and a good corrective to the “ ‘follow your dream’ mantra. Understand your dream, we would be better instructed;”
At The Atlantic, James Parker coos over “The Great American Sports Page,” marveling at “how often the writers connect, how often the prose approaches the condition of flat-out poetry” and lamenting that the idiosyncratic styles developed by the masters of the genre, on deadline, night after night, are being flattened out into the ether:
“Sport is not like life. It’s the hit, the punch, the shot, the stroke, the break—the consecrated instant that lasts forever. Bap! As commentary disperses itself across in-game tweets and postgame podcasts, and as our analysis of what actually happened gets more granular, more expert, less Runyon-esque, are we losing touch with the moment of contact? The clattering presses are falling silent; the internet gapes, demanding content from every angle. So farewell, perhaps, to the gymnasts of deadline prose, the ones who stuck the landing. They were mighty in their day.”
Now Hear This
Tyler Kepner, author of the newly published “K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches,” visits Baseball By the Book to discuss mound luminaries Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Nolan Ryan and others with Justin McGuire; at The Washington Post, Steven Roberts says the book is a bit scattered in its narrative flow, but is a delight for serious students of the 60-foot duel:
“This volume will appeal more to hardcore fans than to casual readers, but for us baseball believers, there are plenty of nourishing nuggets here, starting with the essential nature of the pitching profession.”
Sports photographer Brad Mangin, who's done work for Sports Illustrated, MLB and the PGA Tour, is the guest on the Photo Banter podcast;
At Good Seats Still Available, soccer historian Steve Holroyd delves into the 1979 North American Soccer League players strike that they won, but only a year before the circuit folded in 1985;
On the Blue is the Colour podcast from Ireland, three moms talk about how much their fandom of Dubs of the Gaelic Athletic Association has meant for them and their families as they care for children with Down Syndrome, autism and cancer.
Passings
Tony Tomsic, 83, was one of the “Keepers of the Streak,” a foursome of photographers to shoot every Super Bowl for over the event’s first 48 years, along with Walter Iooss Jr., John Biever and Mickey Palmer. With 20 Sports Illustrated cover credits to his name, Tomsic eschewed the onset of digital photography after most everyone else had put down a film camera.
His iconic shots included a triumphant Vince Lombardi, and he estimated he shot more than a half-million photos of the NFL alone. Michael Yanow, photo editor of NFL.com, compiled this gallery of some of Tomsic’s most notable shots, some of which were also featured in “Best Shots: The Greatest NFL Photography of the Century,” published in 1999;
Johnny Neumann, 68, averaged 40 points a game in his only varsity season at Ole Miss, in the days before the 3-point line, and as Pete Maravich was playing to more acclaim at LSU. Neumann went hardship but had a sketchy pro basketball career, and crashed out with financial and other problems that followed him the rest of his life. “Johnny Reb,” the subject of a recent documentary on the SEC Network, got his undergraduate degree in 2016, and had been battling cancer.
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This is Digest issue No. 164, published April 28, 2019.
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