Jim Murray is my favorite sportswriter of all time. It's too bad that he lived in LA for in growing up I seldom got to read his work. It is only now in retrospect that I am reading his best writing.
His autobiography, published in 1993, is a real treat. Murray is funny, irreverant, and simply a great writer. In this book I get to read about the people and sports heroes of my time, the 50's and 60's. It ain't the same today.
Murray is such an entertaining writer. I don't know that I would trust him to tell what is going on in the Ukraine, but he would have some things to say about the owner of the LA Clippers.
The book reads partly like a series of name droppings. Murray covered Hollywood for TIME magazine before accidently getting into sports writing as he became part of the founding of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, once the best sports periodical. He has hilarious memories of Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, and Marlon Brando. Monroe was so vulnerable, Bogart was a fake toughie, Brando was an inveterate prankster who truely traveled to the beat of his own drummer.
Murray defends Pete Rose. Sorry, I think Pete Rose is a jerk and I have no use for him. Murray says it was never definitely proved that Rose bet on baseball and that the Commisioiner had a vendetta against him. Maybe so: I don't know. But if so, why did Rose agree to his ban from baseball?
Jim Murray likes golf. I do not like golf. Love of the little white ball completely eludes me. Hit that little white ball and you never know where it might go. Murray is right in calling attention to the great individuality of the game. I do like Murray's account of the famous golfers of his time that he admired. There's the tenacity of Ben Hogan: so serious sounding. Hogan was before my time. He preceded Palmer, who made the game popular in the television age. I didn't realize that Palmer was so unweildly . Murray makes him sound like a discombulated person. Nicklaus was the greatest of Murray's time. Sam Snead, a Southerner and poor putter, sounds like he was a lot of fun. I wonder what Murray would have thought of Tiger Woods.
In his basketball chapter Murray says Jerry West was as good as Michael Jordan. I don't think so. He pays proper respect to Bill Russell, the best basketball player of all time in my opinion. He talks about Jack Kent Cooke purchasing the LA Lakers.
About Jackie Robinson: The fierciest competitor he ever saw and the best all-around athlete, better at track, football, & basketball than football. From Pasadena, not from a cotton patch in Alabama.
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