Three different sports stories I've come across in the past few weeks stood out as being well-written pieces about stories that are just darn... nice.
Joe Posnanski is a writer who often produces work in this category of nice (and being incredibly prolific, he also produces lots of other great work) and he wrote "Ankiel: A Rare Player Reinvented" for NBC Sports. About former Cardinals pitcher and now Astros outfield Rick Ankiel, it's a fascinating look at someone who reinvented himself to maintain a career playing baseball.
Another recent story that brought a smile was by Chuck Culpepper for Sports on Earth. "Uniquely Memorable" was about Frosty Westering, the longtime Pacific Lutheran University football coach who died earlier this month at 85. It was an excellent piece from Culpepper on someone whose teams performed well on the field and were led by a coach that treated his players as people rather than just cogs in a football machine.
The last piece of writing to mention here was for the Philadelphia Enquirer by Michael Vitez. "Wilmington man, 88, got a late start and kept on running" was about Hugh Campbell and a very cool story of someone's achievements.
