In the process of doing a post a week ago on my Best 2010 Writing Linked To, there were a number of really good pieces that just missed the Best cut.
One category of writing that said close to the Best stuff fell into was sports and there was some really good pieces I came across in the past year from both Sports Illustrated and elsewhere by SI writers.
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In terms of volume, Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski stood out with three different pieces linked to that I found exceptional (yea, I guess they didn't make the Best cut, but exceptional nonetheless).
The two SI stories were both on football (and related to Posnanski's hometown Kansas City Chiefs). From the Dec 6 issue was A Dream In The Making about Kansas City Chiefs General Manager Scott Pioli and from the Aug 23 Sports Illustrated, a profile of NFL veteran Tony Richardson titled Made to Last. Both stories qualified as excellent writing... a thorough look at the subject, rooted in human interest, but not so much that it took away from the subject described (which can happen sometimes with stories leaning towards the profound).
Also excellent writing from Posnanski was his July 2 SI blog entry The Quisenberry Tree (on former Royals pitcher Dan Quisenberry). I wrote a fair amount of commentary when linking to the the piece and copied into my blog post a really cool missive from Posnanski that touches on words, writing and conveying meaning through them.
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Two other stories of note from Sports Illustrated...
In SI's June 28 edition, Chris Ballard (who wrote the Jill Costello profile referenced as Best Writing) provided The Magical Season Of The Macon Ironmen. Very interesting piece on a tremendous accomplishment... and which gave me reason to post a Hoosiers clip in my post linking to it!
From the April 12 issue was The Genuine Point Guard on Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns. Written by Charles Pierce, I wrote in my blog entry linking to it of how Pierce uses a specific choice of language to describe Nash. Very similar to Posnanski's writing on Quisenberry in that it shows both an appreciation of and excellent usage of words to tell a story.
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As I state in the heading...
Blog is all about words because... they matter, they influence, they entertain and when you take 'em and put them down on a page in a meaningful order, they acquire permanence.
Showing posts with label Dan Quisenberry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dan Quisenberry. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Friday, July 02, 2010
Joe Posnanski Piece on Dan Quisenberry
Came across a great story titled "The Quisenberry Tree" about the former Kansas City Royals pitcher who passed away from a brain tumor in 1998.
The piece is written by Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski and hits at what I love about great writing on multiple levels (a concept I previously posted about here)... the delivery, the topic and the prose itself.
In terms of delivery, I learned of the piece through a twitter update from Posnanski which included a link to the Quisenberry story posted on his personal blog. So interesting to me the concept of new forms of written delivery... and so cool someone like Posnanski who embraces said new forms (which, yea... I also posted about before).
From a topic perspective, I found this to be just a very moving piece on a a fascinating guy. As both Posnanski and Quisenberry's wikipedia page detail, the pitcher's career ended in 1990 and then post-baseball he became a published poet.
The final level mentioned above that I thought the story excelled on was prose. It's thoughtful stuff whose most meaningful section (I imagine to Posnanski as well since the italics are from him) was below...
"The thing that strikes me about Dan’s quotes, even now, is that they’re so perfectly worded. He was an artist. Take a simple quote like this one, from his acceptance speech at one of the Rolaids Relief functions: 'I want to thank all the pitchers who couldn't go nine innings, and manager Dick Howser for not letting them.' I mean, that’s just a little quote, mostly in fun, but read it again — it’s perfect, not a wasted word, Gettysburg Address concise.
Not a wasted word. I don’t believe I’ve ever written this before — for obvious reasons — but almost at the end of his life, Dan told me that he loved the way I wrote because it’s the way he tries to write. It’s one of the three greatest compliments of my life."
Really cool stuff.
The piece is written by Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski and hits at what I love about great writing on multiple levels (a concept I previously posted about here)... the delivery, the topic and the prose itself.
In terms of delivery, I learned of the piece through a twitter update from Posnanski which included a link to the Quisenberry story posted on his personal blog. So interesting to me the concept of new forms of written delivery... and so cool someone like Posnanski who embraces said new forms (which, yea... I also posted about before).
From a topic perspective, I found this to be just a very moving piece on a a fascinating guy. As both Posnanski and Quisenberry's wikipedia page detail, the pitcher's career ended in 1990 and then post-baseball he became a published poet.
The final level mentioned above that I thought the story excelled on was prose. It's thoughtful stuff whose most meaningful section (I imagine to Posnanski as well since the italics are from him) was below...
"The thing that strikes me about Dan’s quotes, even now, is that they’re so perfectly worded. He was an artist. Take a simple quote like this one, from his acceptance speech at one of the Rolaids Relief functions: 'I want to thank all the pitchers who couldn't go nine innings, and manager Dick Howser for not letting them.' I mean, that’s just a little quote, mostly in fun, but read it again — it’s perfect, not a wasted word, Gettysburg Address concise.
Not a wasted word. I don’t believe I’ve ever written this before — for obvious reasons — but almost at the end of his life, Dan told me that he loved the way I wrote because it’s the way he tries to write. It’s one of the three greatest compliments of my life."
Really cool stuff.
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