I read all of the Madden story you attached because I have a deep interest in Madden, and I suppose he is/was one of my heroes. When I was probably 11 or 12 years old, I was given his "with" autobiography (Dave Anderson the co-author), "Hey, Wait a Minute! I wrote a Book!", and I have exact memory of many, many stories from that. If you just imbibe everything that is in there, your historical football knowledge will greatly increase, particularly of the Oakland Raider teams from '67 to '78.
As an aside, the usual model is for the play-by-play man to pump the color guy for all of his experiences from the field of battle. There are plenty of gratuitous references. Summerall and Madden weren't like that. He never betrayed any allegiance to the Raiders, and kept those stories in house. But they are there in his books. When it came to his commentary, he focused on the game in front of him, and let the merit of what he said stand on its own. Not only did he not name drop, he didn't name drop himself.
And isn't 11-12 years old the PERFECT time to read sports bios? Around that age, I remember reading Frank Robinson's diary of his first year as the Cleveland Indians' manager. It was spell-binding stuff at the time, though if I read it again, I doubt I'd have quite the same reaction.
Right. As Isaac Bashevis Singer said about reading Sherlock Holmes, "Well, I read these things when I was a boy of ten or eleven, and to me they looked so sublime, so wonderful, that even today I don’t dare to read Sherlock Holmes again because I am afraid that I may be disappointed."
I haven't paused documentaries to read a newspaper account, but unfortunately, I think it sounds like a great idea. So I probably will start doing it....
Proud to be a nutty influence on you, Geoff! For those who might traipse along here and read my reply, I highly recommend Geoff's deep and fascinating dives into television shows from yesteryear: https://thetvprofessor.com/
I was heartened to see that of the 14 people who answered the question about whether they press pause when documentaries display newspaper clips, seven (50%) noted that they do so. I feel like I've put my finger on some kind of random pulse here :-).
I read all of the Madden story you attached because I have a deep interest in Madden, and I suppose he is/was one of my heroes. When I was probably 11 or 12 years old, I was given his "with" autobiography (Dave Anderson the co-author), "Hey, Wait a Minute! I wrote a Book!", and I have exact memory of many, many stories from that. If you just imbibe everything that is in there, your historical football knowledge will greatly increase, particularly of the Oakland Raider teams from '67 to '78.
As an aside, the usual model is for the play-by-play man to pump the color guy for all of his experiences from the field of battle. There are plenty of gratuitous references. Summerall and Madden weren't like that. He never betrayed any allegiance to the Raiders, and kept those stories in house. But they are there in his books. When it came to his commentary, he focused on the game in front of him, and let the merit of what he said stand on its own. Not only did he not name drop, he didn't name drop himself.
And isn't 11-12 years old the PERFECT time to read sports bios? Around that age, I remember reading Frank Robinson's diary of his first year as the Cleveland Indians' manager. It was spell-binding stuff at the time, though if I read it again, I doubt I'd have quite the same reaction.
Right. As Isaac Bashevis Singer said about reading Sherlock Holmes, "Well, I read these things when I was a boy of ten or eleven, and to me they looked so sublime, so wonderful, that even today I don’t dare to read Sherlock Holmes again because I am afraid that I may be disappointed."
I skipped the Madden piece, because I give not a whit about sports. But otherwise, I'm with ya.
I haven't paused documentaries to read a newspaper account, but unfortunately, I think it sounds like a great idea. So I probably will start doing it....
Proud to be a nutty influence on you, Geoff! For those who might traipse along here and read my reply, I highly recommend Geoff's deep and fascinating dives into television shows from yesteryear: https://thetvprofessor.com/
I was heartened to see that of the 14 people who answered the question about whether they press pause when documentaries display newspaper clips, seven (50%) noted that they do so. I feel like I've put my finger on some kind of random pulse here :-).