"Those Guys Have All the Fun" by James Andrew Miller & Tom Shales

Just finished reading Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales. It did drag on at times in it's 750 odd pages, but was a worthwhile read for anyone interested in sports… and particularly sports journalism.



Here’s what stuck with me from it…

Style of the Book

It was written as an oral history with segments of interviews done with people in the business or related in some way to ESPN (both within and outside the company). Some 500+ interviews by Shales and Miller went into this effort and there’s frequently interspersed text from the authors linking together the interview segments. At first I thought the book would lack in narrative flow, but I’d say it worked fairly well as an approach.

That said, I did have jump out to me one interview segment given in two different places in the book (ESPN exec John Skipper about personality Tony Kornheiser on page 677 as well as 610). Maybe this was done intentionally rather than being a mistake in construction then overlooked in the editing process, but I found it pretty jarring as a reader.

ESPN Business Early On

It was pretty interesting reading how the idea for ESPN began with the intention of showing local Connecticut sports, but then the realization that it cost no more to send a signal nationally. Shortly after this was made what turned out to be the brilliant decision to buy a satellite transponder for broadcasts when it was still relatively inexpensive as cable was a new thing. These early years were pretty fast and loose (with Stuart Evey as the Getty Oil money guy helping lead the party charge), but the business took hold… in large part due to the dual revenue stream of both advertising dollars and cable operators paying to run the channel.

Content on the ESPN Networks

It came across in the book that the deals with various sports properties drove the company forward (with the NFL being by far the most important partner), but also there was significant mention of key non-game broadcast content provided via various platforms (with the non-TV platforms obviously being more recent).

ESPN the Magazine was created to slap back at Sports Illustrated and their CNNSI sports network and (while I personally find the graphic-intensive delivery to be annoying) established a new way to reach the audience. Additionally, programs such as SportsCentury (produced by wunderkind and future exec Mark Shapiro) established ESPN as a credible news outlet and source for documentary filmmaking. Non-game content discussed at length in the book were successful programs like Pardon the Interruption with Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser and College Gameday.

Perhaps successful from a ratings perspective, but not critical view was the LeBron James spectacle “The Decision”... which showed the ongoing tightrope that ESPN had and continues to have to walk between journalism/reporting and game broadcasting/league partner.

Journalists at ESPN

In the beginning, ESPN put a focus on showing a professional production on screen and worked to have solid on-air talent. Among early hires were current notables like Chris Berman and Bob Ley. As time went on, there continued to be very interesting stories around the anchors and broadcasters, with Keith Olbermann and his acerbic brilliance often in conflict with management.

The closer to present-day stories about the writers for ESPN might have been the most compelling part of the book for me (with the following people featured)…

Buster Olney – excellent baseball writer and someone who puts incredibly long hours into the job.

Bill Simmons – created his Boston Sports Guy blog in 2001 and got noticed with a scathing review of that year’s ESPY Awards. Writes an enormous number of words and comes across as a bit of an ESPN outsider… and who runs the ESPN writing website Grantland.

Dan Patrick – one of the early stars at ESPN… left fairly recently and now does a weekly column for Sports Illustrated.

Rick Reilly – a former Sports Illustrated star writer (one of the only ones in the sports writing world)… came not long ago to ESPN and it’s various platforms (including of course, The Magazine).

Wright Thompson – excellent young writer for the ESPN website and it’s E:60 investigative journalism. Also does great content for Grantland.

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The book could have I think been a bit shorter, but there was definitely solid content on an interesting and powerful (and with only around 6,000 employees worldwide) company.

Sports Illustrated & Grantland.com Championship Features: Dallas Mavericks & Boston Bruins

Some solid writing on recent Championship runs by the Dallas Mavericks and Boston Bruins.



The NBA Title from the Mavs yielded the SI cover story "Lone Star Power" by Lee Jenkins. Very solid piece that conveyed the details of the Finals along with the human drama supplied by Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki. Excellent blend of straight reporting and emotional kick from Jenkins.

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Reporting on the Bruins win differed in that while there was a good individual achievement piece in Sports Illustrated after the Stanley Cup Finals, it was tougher to find really good writing on the team and series as a whole.

The aforementioned SI writing was "Hub Fans Bid Tim Yahoo!" by Brian Cazeneuve. Very solid recounting of the path to a championship taken by Bruins goalie and playoff MVP Tim Thomas.

In terms of an overall writeup on the Bruins and the extremely compelling Finals against the Canucks, the best I came across was written for the new website Grantland. "Proud to be an NHL front-runner" was written by Bill Simmons after game four of the Finals and did an excellent job of portraying the level of nastiness in the first four games and contrasting the two teams... and why for many fans, the Bruins were an easier team to like than the Nucks. After the game seven win by the Bruins, Simmons then penned "A Black And Gold Day for Boston. Finally." also for Grantland (and from which the below image was taken).



There's a lot written on Tim Thomas in the second Grantland piece (and justifiably so), but Simmons also does a solid job of linking this win to Bruins championships (and goalies) from the past.

Excellent writing on two big triumphs.

"An Accidental Sportswriter" by Robert Lipsyte

Recently finished reading the Robert Lipsyte memoir "An Accidental Sportswriter".



I first heard about the book from this Sports Illustrated review and enjoyed the description of his life and experience in writing. Lipsyte's choice of title of title was fitting given both his writing outside of sports (both general-life type column and Young Adult books) and non-traditional subjects when working as a Sportswriter.

This idea of topics on the fringe of sports comes out as Lipsyte writes of the Lodge Brother (in italics to note as Lipsyte's term) approach to sportswriting practiced by many through the years. Rather than celebrating the Jock Culture atmosphere, Lipsyte often sought out the story that revealed a greater slice of life than simply someone who could play great ball and whose exploits generated the type of prose readers wanted. Nowhere in recent memory is this concept more in evidence than the Mark McGuire-Sammy Sosa home run race... celebrated at the time as a magnificent (and non-steroid pumped) achievement.

Later in the book there was an interesting mention of ESPN writer Bill Simmons, who wrote of steroids as only being a negative in how it caused him to look at achievements. It's representative of an interesting viewpoint by Simmons... rather than focusing on the game or athletes themselves, the thing that matters is one's reaction to and thoughts of sporting events. Makes sense if one believes that big time sports isn't life for a fan, it's about being entertained.
Additionally, Lipsyte wrote of this Jock Culture mentality towards sports (and associated Lodge Brother mentality of sportswriting) with his prose around the seemingly lack of interest that people have in looking at or writing about gay athlete's coming out.

Finally, I also found of note Lipsyte's mention of his early years as a New York Times writer. From that period he references working with Gay Talese, writer of the Esquire piece "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold"... often credited as being the example of New Journalism or compelling narrative non-fiction.

Closing out the book was Lipsyte's chapter on his relationship with his father (who lived past 100). Solid read, especially for someone interested in writing.

Fast Company Magazine - Feb 2010 issue

Couple of things of interest of the Feb 2010 issue of Fast Company Magazine...



The first was from the cover story on Phoenix Suns point guard Steve Nash. Rather than the entirety of the story, what struck me was mention around his off the court involvements.

One of Nash's business ventures is a film production company, Meathawk, and it's first documentary is an ESPN 30 for 30 project on Canadian hero Terry Fox. The movie is titled "Into the Wind" and will chronicle the run across Canada that Fox made to raise money for cancer research after losing a leg to the disease. While Fox passed away in 1981, his legend has carried on to the point that his mother was a featured participant of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies.

No ESPN air date yet for the documentary, but I'm looking forward to seeing it.
Looking into details on "Into the Wind" led me to read further about the 30 for 30 documentary project. The main website features this Bill Simmons essay on 30 for 30 along with a listing of the features. Among these is "Kings Ransom" about Wayne Gretzky going from the Edmonton Oilers to the LA Kings. Directed by Peter Berg, this movie aired fall 2009 on ESPN and appears to be shown next April 25 on ESPN Classic.

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Completely unrelated to Steve Nash, Terry Fox, ESPN or Wayne Gretzky... I also found of note from this Fast Company issue mention of the "weblog about the liberal arts 2.0" Kottke.org from blogger Jason Kottke.