The Sportswriter

The charming little touches in Smith’s writing caught his more careful readers’ attention and gained their admiration. The British middleweight Randy Turpin, late in his fight against Sugar Ray Robinson, “was weaving like a cobra dancing to a flute.” The knees of the heavyweight Archie Moore, in his fight against Rocky Marciano, “were wet spaghetti.” He called the Yankees pitcher Allie Reynolds, a member of the Creek Indian nation, “that estimable aborigine.” The fight promoter Don King shows up in a pair of “brown pants with a crease that could draw blood.” There is scarcely a column in this book that is without one or more of these fine touches.


Read the rest of Joseph Epstein's essay here.