Watchdog

I remember reading Bill Heinz as a kid ... he was the man behind Vince Lombardi's "Run to Daylight" ... and later in life enjoyed the story behind that book [via David Maraniss] and also Heinz's co-authorship of the original novel M*A*S*H ...

I have a paperback that's a collection of Heinz's magazine and newspaper articles ... besides the famed story of Bummy the Brooklyn boxer ... there's one story in the anthology that he did for the old New York Sun about the Hambletonian harness race.

That dispatch from upstate Goshen just sticks in my mind because he wrote so much of the color around the event, while still focusing on the horse that won it. It's called "Hoot Mon's Year" and should be required reading for all.

A contemporary and neighbor of Walter Wellesley [Red} Smith.
Up there in the pantheon of American sports journalists like Grantland Rice, Damon Runyon, Mr. Young of the News, and yes folks like Hunter Thompson and Howard Cosell.

R.I.P, W.C.

First, Myron Cope who had a distinguished career at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and SI before becoming a broadcaster and then, Bill Heinz. I'm sure they're both exchanging great stories.

W.C. Heinz's "What A Time It Was", is a collection of W.C. Heinz on sports. My two favorite works of his are in the book. "Stan Musial's Last Day", and "Down Memory Lane with the Babe" written just two months before Ruth died in 1948. A lot of other classic topics in sports especially Boxing,and some non-sports subjects which hewrote for TV Guide in the 70's and 80's on TV. If you can find "What A Time It Was", you will read one of America's great sportswriters.