George Kimball and Thomas Hauser headline this week’s Varsity Letters speaking series, brought to you by the good people at Gelf Magazine. If you are around on Thursday night, do yourself a favor and fall through, you are sure to be entertained and learn a thing or three. I’ll be there for sure.
Here is a recent interview with Kimball discussing “At the Fights: American Writers on Boxing”:
Arts Fuse: A. J. Liebling is generally considered by critics to be the best American writer on boxing. If he is at the top, who are the runners-up and why?
Kimball: Not Mailer and not Hemingway, although they’d probably think they were. Just off the top of my head, the worthy contenders would include Budd Schulberg and W.C. Heinz for certain, but also Mark Kram and Pat Putnam from SI, Ralph Wiley, all of whom really understood the sport in addition to being wonderful writers.
AF: There are some really rare finds here — for example, pieces by Richard Wright and Sherwood Anderson on Joe Louis. How difficult was the research for the anthology? What are some of your favorite pieces?
Kimball: I wouldn’t describe the research as “difficult,” because it was such a pleasure. We probably read a half-dozen really good pieces for every one that wound up in the anthology. We read some pretty awful ones, too, mostly when we’d been touted by someone who should have known better.
…I’ve been asked that question by several people over the past couple of months and usually manage to duck it by saying “Which of your children is your favorite?” But I will say that John Lardner’s masterpiece on Stanley Ketchel, “Down Great Purple Valleys,” is sort of the cornerstone of the whole book. With all the other changes we went through in compiling At the Fights, that was the one, indispensable story if only because it so exemplified what we wanted to do with the rest of the book –- and that was setting the bar pretty high.
Man, Ralph Wiley is overlooked these days, isn’t he? And since George mentioned “Down Great Purple Valleys,” here again, is one of the greatest openings in the history of American journalism:
“Stanley Ketchel was twenty-four years old when he was fatally shot in the back by the common-law husband of the lady who was cooking his breakfast.”
Wiley was awesome, there have been so many sports stories over the last 7 years I've felt cheated on some level that I haven't got to read his take on it.
Can you imagine his columns on Michael Vick? or LeBron? His was a real loss.
2) No doubt and Amen!
and I'll probably get in a little trouble saying this, but I'll just come out and say it: there are few things more insulting to people who like to think they care about/recognize quality sportswriting than Jason Whitlock's shameless and self promotional campaign to make himself seen as the heir to Wiley's throne as "Important African American Sportswriter"
[1] You took the words right out of my mouth. I miss Wiley a lot - I'd be fascinated to hear his take on the current state of the NBA and NFL labor situations, everything having to do with Bonds, Twitter, and especially President Obama. His was a real loss indeed.
I read a few of Wiley's boxing pieces, and though I didn't always understand the boxing content, because I know almost nothing about boxing, the writing was clearly beautiful.
[3] I agree completely. I admire Whitlock's obvious great respect for R-Dub and (perhaps misplaced) desire to "honor" his memory, but Whitlock is not Wiley, not even remotely close.
I thinking of doing a series on sports writers who are neglected and/or overlooked these days. Wiley is one of the more recent examples. Any suggestions would be welcome.