There Will Never Be Another View of L.A. Like This One

When people realized I worked with Jim Murray, the first thing they asked was, “Can he still see?”

“Read his columns,” I answered. “You tell me if he can still see.”

I have covered events with Murray, who was driven to the stadium, pored over a computer with his Coke-bottle glasses, then was driven home.

I would pick up the paper the next day and realize, he saw more of that game than I ever would.

In a sports world that takes itself so seriously, he saw humor.

In victory, he saw humility. In defeat, he saw hope.

In a busy town of big shots, he saw the lone guy walking to the newspaper box with the quarter in his hand, the guy who had no choice but to trust him.

This morning, when that guy pulls open the rack, he will discover another favorite hangout closed, another landmark lost.

Jim Murray is gone, and you know what the worst of it is? We don’t have Jim Murray around to somehow make us smile about it.

We can keep running his columns, you know. Every Sunday, every Thursday, why not?

What he said is still worth hearing. What he taught, we can always stand to learn.

Murray was history during a time when our memories don’t extend beyond last night’s “SportsCenter.”

He was creative thinking in a world that still sees black and white.

He was dignity and class to all of us who scream from the cheap seats.

More than anything, Jim Murray was Los Angeles for a Los Angeles still struggling to understand itself.

He was the city before there was a city. Smart, funny, a bit cynical, a bit sentimental, strong enough to not care what anybody thought about it.

When sports was playing its small part in helping us define ourselves in relation to our more established East Coast rivals, he gave that pride a voice.

Even if, by the time you finished reading him, you were howling too hard to talk.

Any other writer in these parts ever make you laugh out loud over breakfast?

Didn’t think so.

Anybody else convince you that something needed to be changed, a wrong righted, a justice served, without ever actually writing it?

Convinced you by making you convince yourself?

Didn’t think so.

If we keep running his columns, I guarantee you one thing: Jim Murray will still cover the Masters better than anybody in the building. Same goes for the World Series, the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby.

And nobody will ever be as trusted.

Some area columnists have been writing recently that the NFL needs this town more than we need the NFL.

The other day, Murray wrote essentially the same thing--well, OK, with maybe 1,000 times more grace.

“Finally,” one reader immediately wrote, “somebody finally stands up and writes that the NFL needs this town more than we need the NFL.”

Jim Murray was somebody, all right.

He was a giant who walked around like the guy next door, who looked as harmless as Wally Cox, but whose one-liners stung like Muhammad Ali’s jabs.

In the beginning, he was this town’s older brother, explaining things it didn’t understand, defending it against outside criticism, taking on the likes of New York, Cleveland and boxing.

Later, he became a favorite uncle, walking through the door just in time to lend perspective to a Laker loss or neighborhood victory.

In the end, he was our grandfather, beckoning us to his feet twice a week to spin his yarns, particularly the tale that those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it.

How I wish I had listened to more of those stories. How I wish I had not been too intimidated to call him at home, ask him to lunch, then sit there and listen to a couple of hours’ worth of those stories.

During one of his rare trips to the office recently, he started talking about some old team and famous player. Soon, five of us were, literally, sitting at his feet, asking for more.

Jim Murray was somebody, all right.

I remember the time then-Dodger outfielder Kal Daniels refused to talk to Murray.

Murray shrugged, walked away, and four people immediately descended on Daniels.

Not four publicity or newspaper people.

Four players.

Athletes loved him, lined up to meet him. Many grew up reading him, learned to love their games because of him.

Once, when a colleague greeted Murray in a World Cup press tent, one of the workers heard Murray’s name, rushed up to him and told him how her late father used to read him every day.

By the time she finished the story, she was crying. She said Murray reminded her of her dad.

Which, in the end, is why his column will stand as the most enduring sports monument in this town’s history; prettier than the Rose Bowl, more magnificent than the Coliseum, more fabulous than the Forum.

Those places were always about someone else.

In the end, Jim Murray was about us.

Could he still see? A lot better than this city and this newspaper, plunged today into the darkness of a great and terrible void.