Mark Purdy retired in 2018 after 35 years as a columnist for the Mercury News. He posted this on Facebook and granted our request to publish it online and in print.
I’ve been waiting a couple of days to post this because I have been thinking a lot about Bill McPherson, who died Tuesday. I wanted to say so many things about him without being too wordy. But this is still going to be a long post. Sorry.
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In my former racket as a newspaper sports columnist, it wasn’t often that you developed a true person-to-person relationship with any player or coach that went beyond the field or the locker room or the office.