The Tabby In Winter

The Tabby In Winter - Dan Barreiro writes about his resignation from the Strib today. Thinking back, it may have been the third Barreiro column I've read in 17 years. I couldn't tell you what the other two were.

If you grew up reading Chicago newspaper legend Mike Royko, and you wanted to become a writer, you knew two things. The first was that you'd never come remotely close to carrying Royko's jock. The second was that you should write what your gut tells you, and care not what feathers you ruffle...You also learn that when the commentary is more biting than poignant (once upon a time in newspapers, the former was valued every bit as much as the latter), the readers' blood may boil. You hope that whether they agreed with you or not, they understood that all you tried to do was write what you saw.

I'll leave it to the Fraters to do the real fisking here. I have only one thing to say.

DAN! You're a sports writer. You exposed no corruption. You brought no comfortable middle-Americans to worlds they'd never seen, agog with wonder or nauseous with righteous revulsion. You never made a reader feel the thump of incoming mortar fire or smell the blood on the street after the gangland shooting.

No, Dan. You wrote about milliionaire athletes playing kids' games. I've known sports writers. When you get to the big leagues, it's just about the poshest life one can imagine.

But as we all know (because newspaper columnists that matter have told us so), big incomes combined with easy, diverting work aren't always enough to keep one satisfied:

That some folks cared even a little is something that this hardened cynic will always treasure.

That a grownup can become a "hardened cynic" over sports is something that will make this guy who has no time for sports shake his head and wonder about other peoples' priorties.

Sorry, Dan. Didn't care.

Posted by Mitch at March 8, 2004 06:15 AM