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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dave Anderson, who died Thursday, was working at a time when sports writers wrote four times a week, when their opinions, knowledge and initiative were relatively present 168 hours a week.
During all my years working with him, I have never seen him worried about what to cover, what to say, or how to say it. He knew.
He was also an excellent journalist, speaking at the 1989 San Francisco earthquake or the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing. Harvey Araton, a former sports columnist , congratulated Dave's report in an email on Thursday:
"My favorite story with Dave will always be the way he presented himself to me at half-time in the second game, the Knicks / Bulls, the 1993 conference finale, and said," Guy, behind I scream at Jordan for being late in Atlantic City the night before. Harvey, who knows the garden well, found a man who "told me that he had seen Jordan at midnight after Bally's Grand."
"I told Dave, who said he would look into the situation," he said.
"The next afternoon," Harvey continued, "Dave had time for Jordan to check, check and see how much he had lost in blackjack.
"Knicks fans have largely blamed Jordan and the Knicks for losing four times in a row after winning the first two.
"The other thing is," said Harvey, "this is the only time I hear anything bad about Dave Anderson."
Dave has definitely responded to criticism with a shrug and one of his usual phrases: "Hey, what can I tell you?"
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I remember Dave from the old Journal-American. It covered all the sports, it seemed, but bore the aura of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The legend is, he was the last Ebbets Field reporter on that terrible day in 1957 when the Dodgers played their last home game. (He let his colleague go first through the revolving door, creating a better story, probably.)
I've always thought that Dave had learned to frequent Pee Wee Reese, the Dodgers captain, who was at the heart of this clubhouse.
Captains gave examples. When I arrived at the Times in 1968, Dave had an office next to me. He sharpened half a dozen pencils, put out paper and phoned. He was talkative but direct, knew what he wanted, did not waste time. People talked to him because he was safe and polite.
His antennas were better than mine. At the 1986 World Series, there was not enough space in the former Fenway Park press space in Boston, so even Dave Anderson had to sit outside in the # 39, cold air from October, in the area of the auxiliary press, with fans around us. The fans saw our laptops and started talking to us.
Here is the difference between Dave and me. I moaned about it. Oh, God, are we going to have to endure that for the whole game? Between the sleeves, Dave chatted. One of the men was 88 years old and was gregarious. After a run or two, Dave turned to me and said, with a serene smile on his red face: "He saw Babe Ruth playing for the Red Sox." Dave patted his notebook. He had his.
"I guess that's why you have a Pulitzer," I said.
The Pulitzer dates back to 1980 when George Steinbrenner held a press conference explaining that he had let Dick Howser go as a manager because Howser had an "incredible" opportunity in real estate in Florida. Dave observed that the refreshments served were not eaten (a rarity at press conferences) and wrote that no one really wanted what Steinbrenner was saying that day. Dave saw the detail of the killer telling the story he knew he had to tell.
Dave knew what he knew. I always complained about having to come from Long Island to New Jersey for Sunday football games, which Dave loved. The roads were confusing. The signs were misleading. The fans were drunk – on the way to the match! And the traffic at home Sunday night was inhuman.
Dave said to his petulant colleague: Did not you know enough to get off at Route 46 and take the local road that crosses Fort Lee up to the bridge?
Dave was a rock; Colleagues such as Araton, Ira Berkow, Bill Rhoden and Selena Roberts could count on him – the linebacker who diagnosed each game, the rebounder who played both ends of the field, Musial and Jeter, with consistency and power, as needed. He was familiar with his Thanksgiving homilies, his end-of-year odes to good people in the sport.
He was consistent and he was on target with his one-liners. When the office at home was hesitating about something, he sighed and said, "What a business."
He wrote books on the side, one of John Madden's bestsellers, supporting his family. Maureen, his wife, was usually at home and took care of the four children. She went before him. when I arrived in front of her, he pinched me at the funeral home: Wow, I cared to brave the traffic in New Jersey. At a sad hour, we all laughed.
When my wife heard the sad news on Thursday, she told her son, Steve Anderson, a pillar of ESPN for many years, that she was still photographing Dave at the Mexican restaurant located in the hills behind Oakland – "Madden & # 39 Place '- ordering the specials and sipping margaritas pitchers.
"I've never seen him so happy," she tells Steve. "He was so charming."
Dave Anderson was happy and charming a lot; most of the time, he has been busy writing, for decades, informed and timely columns – the ultimate professional.
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