There was some excellent pieces of writing done recently with longtime Sports Illustrated feature writer Gary Smith announcing his retirement from the magazine.
There were missives by Joe Posnanski and by Tommy Tomlinson for their respective personal blogs and for Sports Illustrated, appreciation pieces from Rick Reilly and from S.L. Price as well as the SI compilation "The best of Gary Smith: Picking the greatest stories of his SI career." Really great writing on someone I've posted on and linked to a number of times.