I had heard Dave Anderson was in ill health and called him to find out directly. This was a year or so ago, and my former New York Times colleague told me the reports were false. I, of course, was pleased to hear that. We talked, and the conversation turned to the Times.
“What do you think of what has happened to the paper?” I asked, referring to the severe change in the in the paper’s sports coverage, particularly the virtual disappearance of baseball coverage and the emphasis on bizarre non-American sports.
“It sickens me,” Anderson replied.
That view was not unexpected. Dave, who died last Thursday at the age of 89, was a meat-and-potatoes columnist. He didn’t waste his time or space with things like Australian women’s cricket and cup stacking. As a reporter, he covered all of the major sports and he continued writing about them as a columnist.
Under sports editors Tom Jolly and Jason Stallman the past several years, the Sports of the Times column has disappeared from the newspaper along with baseball coverage. Sadly, if he had still been a columnist the past few years, he would have been a columnist without a column. What a revoltin’ development that would have been.
But Anderson had retired by the time the Times opted to eliminate the staple that had produced three Pulitzer Prizes for the newspaper – for Arthur Daley, Red Smith and Anderson.
The Times didn’t announce the column’s demise; it never announces such significant developments. But the New York Observer disclosed it in August 2009.
By taking that step, the Times was saying that what Anderson and the others had done wasn’t important.
According to the Observer, sports editor Jolly said the general sports column “is part of a bygone era,” a characterization Jolly liked to use to explain poorly conceived decisions.
Anderson, for sure, did not work or write in a bygone era. He was more than a columnist. He was a reporter before he was a columnist and he remained a reporter after he became a columnist.
In that capacity, Anderson did something alien to most columnists, He offered to help colleagues when they were sharing an assignment, I don’t think there was ever a post-season baseball game that we covered together when Anderson didn’t offer to help talk to a player or a manager I might not get to, on days when he wasn’t writing. No other columnist did that.
His willingness to help got Anderson in trouble in at least one instance I was aware of. After a World Series game, a Times editor called us in the press box and said they had space for another sidebar and needed someone to write it. Dave either wasn’t writing that day or was finished writing his column. He told the editor he would write it.
George Vecsey, a fellow Times columnist, was outraged and let Anderson know it, telling him they were columnists, not reporters, and shouldn’t be writing sidebars. Anderson just shrugged and proceeded to write the sidebar.
Dave had another journalistic habit that was alien to other Times’ columnists. However many reporters were covering the playoff or World Series game, Anderson let us all know what he was writing so we wouldn’t duplicate anything. I remember seeing the other newspapers the next day and they might have two or three stories on the same player or the same play.
Anderson had a knack for picking the best subjects before the game was over, but he wasn’t shy about changing or adding to his idea as the game progressed. No one resented Dave’s decisions, As the Sports of the Times columnist, he was No. 1, and I, for one, respected and honored his status.
All of the Times reporters who benefited from Anderson’s help had reason to appreciate him, but I have a special, personal reason.
Around mid-1969 the Times approached me, expressing interest in interviewing me and possibly hiring me to write the baseball roundup with which they had experimented that season. I was working for the Associated Press at the time, had worked for the A.P. for nearly 10 years and was inclined to stay with the A.P.
Nevertheless, I wanted to explore the Times possibility. Dave Anderson was the only Times sportswriter I knew well enough to approach for information and candor. I called Dave and asked some questions.
The Times was interested in me to write its baseball roundup, but I was doing that at the A.P. Did I really want to change jobs and do the same thing?
When I raised that question with Anderson, he said don’t worry about that. If you start out writing the roundup, you won’t be doing it for long.
As it turned out, the man knew what he was talking about. I took the job, began working for the Times in July 1969 and before the end of the 1970 baseball season I was covering the Yankees.
If Anderson could be faulted for anything in his coverage, it would be his reluctance to be critical of owners, coaches and players. I never asked him why he wasn’t critical or at least more critical than he was, but that was Dave’s style, and he was entitled to it.