And now, after 25 years covering sports media for The New York Times, I’m off to the obituaries department. Live sports to dead folks? I needed a new challenge, time away from pregame shows that have become indistinguishable towers of babble, three-man broadcast booths (deliver me from low-talking Cal Ripken Jr. on TBS baseball) and treacly, genteel Masters coverage that is done to please the overlords at Augusta.
And time away, too, from both televised Olympic coverage that too often ignores interviewing significant non-American winners and from Rowdy Gaines — that’s right, ROWDY GAINES — whose keening voice will forever ring in my ears when I find myself in a swimming pool.