Sportswriter Lacked Focus, but He Did Get the Picture

Athletes are not the only ones reputed to have a zest for life. Reporters who cover sports have also been known for their gusto.

Old-time sportswriters were known as much for their high jinks as their colorful clauses and vibrant verbs.

Tom Anderson was one of the zaniest, recalled the Associated Press’ Will Grimsley.

Anderson, a colleague of Grimsley on a newspaper in Knoxville, Tenn., rarely went for the usual angle at an athletic event. Often, a score wasn’t even included in his story.

“Sometimes,” Grimsley recalled, “he didn’t go for any angle at all. One time, they sent him out to cover the Rose Bowl and they didn’t hear from Tom for five days.”

Before football started in September, things would be pretty slow, and the writers would run their pictures in a half-column over their articles.

“Tom put (actor) Robert Taylor’s picture over one of his pieces, and it caused a huge uproar,” Grimsley said.

“The letters poured in, and he ran bits and pieces of them while apologizing. That day he ran Clark Gable’s picture as his own.”

Trivia time: What is the lowest number of RBIs a player batting more than 500 times has had in a season?

Mr. Albert goes to Washington: Brian Albert, son of sports broadcaster Marv Albert, missed Pamela Rothman’s social studies class at Port Washington, N.Y., because he was visiting the White House. But Rothman wanted to verify the excuse, so she wrote to the President and included an absence form.

“If we could have your cooperation, then maybe other parents, guardians would understand the importance of safeguarding attendance procedures,” Rothman wrote to the White House.

Came this reply:

“Dear Pamela,

“Parents and teachers should care.

“It’s OK, he was with me. The absence slip’s enclosed.

“Sincerely,

“(Signature) George Bush.”

Bush signed the absence form and in the space for makeup assignment wrote, “No makeup--Brian learned a lot.”

Weird science: Chris Antley’s consecutive-day winning streak stopped at 64 when New York’s leading rider failed to win on any of his five mounts at Aqueduct Monday. Antley had won at least one race a day at Aqueduct since Feb. 8.

“This is the first time I ever went winless and got press,” Antley told Newsday’s Mark Berner after being shut out. “When I woke up, I thought 64 rang a bell. You know how some numbers sound good? I said 65, I don’t think I’m going to get to 65. I’m superstitious and I think about things like that.”

Obviously.

Trivia answer: Twelve by Enzo Hernandez, who in 1971 batted 549 times for the San Diego Padres.

Facts and figures: The Daily Racing Form’s annual survey of sports attendance for 1988 offers attendance figures as proof that baseball truly is America’s pastime.

Counting the 26 major league teams, the 19 minor league circuits, the World Series and league championship series and colleges, a total of 89,525,211 watched the Grand Old Game.

According to the Form, horse racing was second with 74,158,269, followed by football with 51,024,820, basketball (the 1987-88 season) with 46,555,845, and ice hockey with 26,875,143.

Estimated figures for auto racing put it second at 85,968,814, and greyhound racing would have come close to ice hockey with an estimated 26,618,552.

Quotebook: “We didn’t go for a DH, bad-bodied, slow-running, quick-fix type of guy,” New York Yankees Manager Dallas Green said of the trade with the Toronto Blue Jays that brought him Jesse Barfield.