I’ve written this before, but let me say it again: The following post is personal and, I imagine, of absolutely no interest to anyone except immediate family — and even a couple of them probably don’t have interest. I’m just warning you in advance. You can skip this one. We’ll get back to sports, I promise.
I write often about Cleveland here because, at heart, I see myself as a Cleveland guy. I was born in Cleveland, raised in Cleveland, saw my first ballgame in Cleveland, had my paper route money stolen in Cleveland, pushed my first car out of the snow in Cleveland, cut open my chin playing tackle football on concrete in Cleveland, had my first crush in Cleveland, got my first kite tangled on a telephone wire in Cleveland. When I go back, I feel at home in a different and wordless way.
But, in fact, I became a writer in Charlotte, North Carolina. I was thinking a little bit about this today while riding on a bus through Beijing. The big reason: I was listening to Ben Folds on the iPod, and his music always takes me back to Charlotte — especially one of my favorite songs, Jesusland. The connection doesn’t make any sense, really, because the lyrics of Jesusland don’t have much (or really anything) to do with Charlotte — the song is really about Jesus and how he would view America. But when I hear it, I feel like I’m driving along Pineville-Matthews Road in Charlotte, past the trees and manicured lawns and huge churches and expensive homes and upscale shopping stores and parks and wondering how the heck someone gets there.
This is one thing I love about music — songs can sear through you in entirely unexpected ways. It’s like the old argument about colors — how do you know that red looks the same to you, to me, to Duane Kuiper? You don’t. Wen I hear Ben Folds’ voice and the music and the piano and the phrases and the irony and joy and cynicism and wonder, it turns different tumblers in my mind than it probably does for you. The music takes me back to Charlotte when I was 17 or 18 years old, a high school senior, a college freshman, utterly confused, unsure, certain only that I would end up working some dead end job because I wasn’t good at anything. It really doesn’t matter which song either, there’s something familiar and wistful about all of it for me. I hear the beginning of Underground (I was never cool in school/I’m sure you don’t remember me) or the awesome groove in “Uncle Walter” (Your Uncle Walter’s going on and on/Where did you go that you were gone so long) or the heartbreaking piano string in “Landed” (Treading the sea of a troubled mind/I had to leave myself behind), and for reasons that go deeper than recognition, I feel like I’m back, that age, all the energy and fear and loneliness and hope and bafflement that goes along with not knowing where the hell you’re going.
Down the tracks/Beautiful McMansions on the hill/that overlook the highway.
Anyway I was listening to “Jesusland,” and I was looking out the window at the other side of the world, and I had Charlotte on my mind, and I got to thinking about things. Well also, not incidentally, I went to the Great Wall of China today, and that’s one of those moments that will get you thinking, one of those bigger-than-now moments, not only because of the history of the wall and the unimaginable size and the extraordinary number of steps you have to climb and (I lost count at a billion shmillion) but simply because up on the wall you realize that you made it, you are here, somehow the events in your life locked and clicked together in such a way that on a sunny Tuesday afternoon in August you traveled around the globe, to that imaginary place you saw in elementary school history books, and you walked on the Great Wall, that amazing thing that you can see from the moon.*
*A couple of colleagues here in Beijing have already read this post, and they wanted to be sure to say that the whole “You can see the Great Wall from the moon” thing is, in fact, an urban myth. Yeah. Right. Next they’ll say that oil doesn’t come from dinosaurs and that Mikey didn’t really die after eating Pop Rocks and Coca Cola. Whatever.
How the heck did I get here anyway? Now we’re getting to the story — it’s one I’ve told before, I’m sure, but I want to tell it again. When I was 19 years old, I felt lost. I have never been one to worry about things — a skill which has helped me in surprising ways throughout my life — but it also meant that I woke up one day in 1986 and realized that I absolutely had no plan. I had no unique skills, no particular talents, I wasn’t good enough to play second base in the big leagues nor smart enough to get a Rhodes Scholarship nor quick enough to win a lot of money on Jeopardy. I really was scared. I had a dreadful job then. I worked for a photo studio, and I would call people up and try to get them to schedule a photo appointment, and I hated every minute of it. I became convinced that this would be the job for the rest of my life.
*The prospective customers did get a free 3 x 5 photograph just for coming in, so it was not a total loss.
I can’t even tell you how the idea of writing for a living began. I had never been told by anyone that I had any particular talent for writing. I did not have any writers in my family, I did not know any writers, I did not have any conception of how someone would become a writer. The only real writing I had ever done, aside from school assignments that inevitably earned Cs, was in my high school accounting classes, when I was so bored I would write things like Cleveland Indians previews. This habit might have been a good hint that I would not, in fact, ever become an accountant. But I was not very good at picking up hints in those and so accounting was my first major in college. Then it was Business Administration. It might as well have been nuclear physics. I would sit dazed in my college classes. I would write more things like Cleveland Indians previews.
That year, because I had nothing better to do, I sent in an unsolicited story to the baseball card magazine “Beckett Monthly.” I cannot imagine where that gall came from, that loony idea that I could write a story that a magazine would actually publish. I think I was looking at the magazine, and I saw something about submissions and I thought … well, I really don’t know what I thought. I do know that I wrote something about the Hall of Fame (I think) and I typed it very neatly, and I sent it in. A couple of months later a letter arrived in the mail. Inside was a check for $33.00 — my first sportswriter paycheck (3 cents per word!). I don’t know if I was more stunned or hooked, but I was both, and it wasn’t long after that that I lucked into my job as a correspondent for The Charlotte Observer.
Still, that’s not the moment that changed my life — that’s not the moment that got me to The Great Wall of China. No, even after I wrote a few stories for the newspaper I still had no real sense that I could be a professional sportswriter. I am a first generation American — both my parents were born in the former Soviet Union — and I was raised to believe that success meant becoming a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, a professor maybe, and sportswriter wasn’t in the discussion. I remember my Grandfather, a brilliant man, used to show me how he read a newspaper. The first thing he would do was take the sports section out and throw it in the garbage. I don’t mean to say that my parents in any way discouraged me from writing — it wasn’t that at all. No, they just wanted me to be realistic. And becoming a sportswriter — like becoming an astronaut or a zoologist or the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil — did not seem realistic.
No, the moment came a few months later, and i today while listening to Ben Folds I remembered it so clearly. I was in my room, and I was reading Frank Deford’s collection, “The World’s Tallest Midget.” I vaguely knew who Frank Deford was from my lifelong subscription to Sports Illustrated, but I couldn’t tell you what inspired me to buy his book. I think I was in the bookstore reading his introduction about sportswriting, and it intrigued me. That was probably the first impulse book I ever bought.*
*I have since bought 243 million impulse books, by the way.
Anyway, I was reading a story Deford wrote for Sports Illustrated called “The Boxer and the Blonde,” about the boxer Billy Conn. I did not know then that the story is considered one of the greatest magazine stories ever written. I did not know that Deford was viewed by many as the greatest living sportswriter. I did not know anything at all. I started reading the story, and I was mesmerized. I mean Billy Conn’s story was good, really good, but what mesmerized me was the way Deford used the words. I was not exactly a voracious reader growing up — I pretty much only read sports books by Alfred Slote — so I probably never had quite the feeling I was having, this feeling of, “How does the guy do that? How does he get me to read this sentence fast and this sentence slow? How does he move me from one paragraph to the next until I lose time? How does he have me caring SO much when I know what’s going to happen, when I know that Joe Louis will knock out Billy Conn*?
*I knew all about Billy Conn. My father was an enormous boxing fan in those days; I grew up with it.
It felt so magical to me. I know that’s trite and corny, but that’s precisely how I felt, trite and corny, I really felt like something was changing, like a world was opening, and then — I will never forget it — I read this paragraph.
”Louis was slumped in his corner. Jack Blackburn, his trainer, shook his head and rubbed him hard. “Chappie,” he said, using his nickname for the champ, “you’re losing. You gotta knock him out.” Louis didn’t have to be told. Everyone understood. Everyone in the Polo Grounds. Everyone listening through the magic of radio. Everyone. There was bedlam. It was wonderful. Men had been slugging it out for eons, and there had been 220 years of prizefighting, and there would yet be Marciano and the two Sugar Rays and Ali, but this was it. This was the best it had ever been and ever would be, the 12th and 13th rounds of Louis and Conn on a warm night in New York just before the world went to hell. The people were standing and cheering for Conn, but it was really for the sport and for the moment and for themselves that they cheered. They could be a part of it, and every now and then, for an instant, that is it, and it can’t ever get any better. This was such a time in the history of games.“
And I stopped. I read that paragraph again. And again. And again. Everyone understood. It was wonderful. Men had been slugging it out for eons. There would yet be Marciano and the two Sugar Rays. A warm night in New York just before the world went to hell. It was really for the sport and for the moment. It can’t get any better. Such a time in the history of games.
I stopped reading, and I closed the book for a moment, and I looked out the window. I thought — the clearest thought I have ever had in my entire life — ”THAT is what I want to do.“ And that was the moment when my life changed, when I suddenly knew where I was going, and a few months later I would read Gary Smith’s brilliant piece about Muhammad Ali and his one-time entourage (”He was staring at the slowly swishing trees, listening to the breeze sift leaves and make a lulling sound like water running over the rocks of a distant stream. He didn’t seem to hear. … And I said again, “What happened to the circus?”) and I felt the same way. I read Rick Reilly’s amazing story about a wrestling priest in Mexico (“He is tired. He longs to be a rock in the bed. He unlaces the mask from the back and pulls it slowly over his head to reveal his weary face./ There’s no mystery. If He were here today, trying to keep 86 children warm and fed and out of the streets, would the face of Jesus look very different?”) and felt it again.
For the first time in my life I started to read Sports Illustrated, not for the stories themselves, but for the words, for the inspiration they gave me, for a sense of who I was and what I hoped to be.
That’s why I’m really excited about the big blog news that I’ve been teasing for the last few weeks. Starting next week, Sportsllustrated.com — si.com, for short — will be reprinting this blog. Don’t even ask how that happened. And, even more thrilling, starting next week I will write one column a week for the Sports Illustrated dot-com — I believe it will appear on Wednesdays.
There are any number of cool things about this. For one, this blog should not change at all. SI just wants to reprint it. Also, I’m still writing columns for The Kansas City Star, which has been home and family for a dozen years now. And finally, I will be writing for Sports Illustrated, which is where it all began for me. I know that the world keeps changing, and these days there are brilliant and hilarious and all-heart writers at ESPN and Fox and CBS Sportsline and Yahoo! and all these other other places that have only gotten into the sportswriting game in the last few years. I have great friends at all those places. There’s something in my own heart for Sports Illustrated. Today, I saw the Great Wall of China. Next week, I start writing for Sports Illustrated. It’s beyond my imagination.
And it’s like Ben Folds sings.
I don’t get many things right the first time
In fact, I am told that a lot
Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls
Brought me here.
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131 Comments, Comment or Ping
Lance Richardson
Well, congratulations are certainly in order.
We’re about the same age, and I understand EXACTLY how you feel about SI.
You, Joe, are about the best thing going in your chosen field (or the field that chose you…), and I’m certain SI is thrilled to have you in the fold. And all of us will be thrilled to continue reading.
Aug 19th, 2008
Evan
Congrats Joe!!! That’s fantastic, you deserve to be right there with the legends.
Aug 19th, 2008
Dave McG
Good job Joe.
I have read near every column since the Soul of Baseball days.
Some journey!!
Thanks.
Aug 19th, 2008
EdB
I will read Joe Posnanski’s work anywhere he publishes it. Joe, I am glad you’ll get the large audience you deserve.
Hope you’ll still have time for the book (you remember, you’re writing this book…..)
Good luck, and congratulations on a great professional accomplishment.
Aug 19th, 2008
Mike
Congratulations.
One day, Joe, young sportswriters will tell their Posnanski stories . . . just like yours about Deford & Reilly.
Aug 19th, 2008
Geoffrey
Does this mean more shameless book plugs within your blogs Joe? Or will SI cut those out? It would be a shame if they did, and I think if you ever tried Radio again or if you get on TV then “did I metion I’m writing this book” should be your cathphrase (it kind of already is)
Aug 19th, 2008
Ed
Congratulations Joe. You’re definitely living the dream.
I’ve made SI.com a daily stop for a number of years and your weekly column will immediately go to the top of the must-read list.
If I understand correctly- you’ll be getting paid for what you were very content to do for free? That’s great.
Aug 19th, 2008
Monkeyhawk
I got hooked on Dan Jenkins during my SI youth. His reporting on events that were eventually fictionalized into “Semi-Tough,” “Dead Solid Perfect,” et cetera. I think one of the reasons I hate golf is that it never was as good in real life as it was when Jenkins wrote about it.
I suspect being a sports columnist is sort of like writing sonnets for a living. There are all those limitations — 700 words or so, a sometimes-pressurizing deadline, you’re talking about stuff everyone already knows about (the score, the star, the game…) — and your job is to tell us not just what happened but how it was.
You do it well, Joe. Thanks and congratulations for the new platform.
Aug 19th, 2008
JAY B
Congratulations are definitely in order, Joe.
Hopefully you realize that the reason most of us visit this blog, is because we read your entries with the same sense of wonder at how things we have thought about in a very vague sense can be so artfully put into words.
Keep up the great work, try not to get all corporate on us. : )
Aug 19th, 2008
Brian from Topeka
I look forward to reading your SI column. Who is better than Ben Folds at eliciting memory?
Aug 19th, 2008
John from north of Cincinnati
Congratulations! Glad to hear the good news, Joe. At last, your blog won’t just be a labor of love. Like they say, “Do what you love and the money will follow.”
Aug 19th, 2008
Grunthos
Great! Now I don’t have to feel guilty about not buying your book.
Aug 19th, 2008
Mikey
Reilly out, Posnanski in. Things are looking up at SI!!!
The Boxer and the Blonde is one of my favorite - if not my very favorite - pieces of sportswriting ever.
There is a pivotal figure in the story, a classic bare-knuckles Pittsburgh guy, named Greenfield Jimmy Smith. I grew up in Greenfield. When this story was published it was mind-blowing to me. It made me see my surroundings differently in a way that only one other artist had (Bruce, of course).
So it somehow makes me glad to know this story had such an impact on your career. Every reader of this blog should find it on the searchable SI archives and read it or re-read it.
Big congrats to you Joe. It’s a big win for you and a bigger win for SI.
Aug 19th, 2008
Curtis
Congratulations!
Aug 19th, 2008
james
Congrats, Joe. Good stuff about Ben Folds. Let us know how Bruce was.
Aug 19th, 2008
Michael
Way to go, Joe. That’s a great story, too. How will we know the people who have been posting here for a couple of years once you’re getting a million comments a day?
Aug 19th, 2008
Sabby
Congratulations! And on a selfish note, finally SI will have a writer who appreciates the value of VORP and OPS+. It’s about time.
Aug 19th, 2008
Pat
Its about time! Congrats.
Aug 19th, 2008
Noel
Congrats, Joe! I fully expect more and more people to use “Jeterate” and “pixie food” in every day conversation now!
Aug 19th, 2008
Bill
Grew a moustache and a mullet
got a job at chic-fil-a - citing
artistic differences the band broke up in May
and in June reformed without me
and they got a different name
and I nuked another Grandma’s apple pie
and hung my head in shame
Congrats Joe!
Aug 19th, 2008
KCJoe
Congratulations!
I will second what Jay B said:
Hopefully you realize that the reason most of us visit this blog, is because we read your entries with the same sense of wonder at how things we have thought about in a very vague sense can be so artfully put into words.
Aug 19th, 2008
B.E. Earl
As Mikey pointed out…great for you, but even better for SI and their readers.
Aug 19th, 2008
Damon Rutherford
Posnanski in 2012!
Aug 19th, 2008
Andy
Congrats Joe, well deserved. Great news about the blog appearing in both places. SI.com is blocked from work… Robbing me of Poz would be a crime!
Aug 19th, 2008
Ed
Congratulations Joe! You certainly deserve it. SI readers don’t know what greatness they’re about to get!
Aug 19th, 2008
Robert
Joe,
Congratulations are well deserved. The more people who are able to read your writing, the better our society will be.
Aug 19th, 2008
mateo
Wow, Congrats!! You deserve it.
Aug 19th, 2008
Chris
Joe,
I’m thrilled to hear the news. I know you won’t, but don’t get too “big and important” or ever think “check the paper and the TV, look who’s telling who what to do.”
Great work and congratulations!!!
Aug 19th, 2008
Wayne Tollison
Mazal - Tov. Try not to forget about the little people.
Aug 19th, 2008
Henry
Joe,
I lived in Kansas City for 15 years before I moved to Charlotte NC 5 years ago right after college and for those past 5 years I have been looking forward to your columns in the KC Star. I love your writing!
Now, I will look forward to your columns in Sports Illustrated (maybe, some day you will be able to take over the back page…it hasn’t been the same since Rick Riley left)
I cheered when I saw that you typed “Pineville - Matthews Road” and ” manicured lawns” and “up scale shopping centers”…That is what Charlotte is all about…well, that and pork BBQ (it’s not KC Beef).
I live here and I love it!
Congrats!
Aug 19th, 2008
RC
Congratulations Joe.
I’m 23 years old and have lived in the KC area my entire life (if you count the 5 years in Lawrence) and I can honestly say that you are the reason that I ever picked up the Star as a kid. You got me hooked on newspapers and reading for entertainment in general. I often wonder how Kansas City has been so fortunate to have the best sportswriter in the country and I always felt like you were our little secret. Then you started this blog, which I was quick to share with everyone I could, and people from all over the country have started making your writing a (semi) daily routine like those of us from KC. Now with the SI reprint / column you are definitely no longer our little secret but I couldn’t be happier for you. Obviously writing for SI is a big deal to you but I’m sure they are just as thrilled as you to have you aboard. Just promise you won’t get too big time to write for the Star every now and again.
Congratulations again and I will definitely be adding SI.com to my bookmarks.
Aug 19th, 2008
John
Good time Joe, congrats. So are you supposed to be their “sports guy” writing long rambling articles/blog posts about anything and everything. Definitely think SI will come out on top if that’s the case.
Hopefully this site doesn’t get a bunch of new commenters asking what a VORP is.
Aug 19th, 2008
Bellweather Johnson
Seems to me an apt Ben Folds lyric in regards to your 19 year-old sportswriting-inclined mind would be:
“So I thought about The Army / Dad said, ‘Son, you’re fu@#!ng high’…
…I’ve been thinking a lot today.”
My own personal Ben Folds was Paul Westerberg, but I don’t know any confused kid who wouldn’t benefit from a little of the Tao of Ben. In fact, I’m 26 and still think about “The Army” every day…
But in all seriousness, Congrats on Sports Illustrated!! My daily Poznanski and Marissa Miller fix in the same place?!?!?
SCORE!!
Aug 19th, 2008
kc1fan8569
Congrats Joe… Finally a reason to read SI.com!!!
Aug 19th, 2008
mick
For me it’s Paddy Reilly, Luke Kelly, Ronnie Drew, and the Wolfe Tones that bring me back to the younger days. As a 1st generation american myself, those are the tunes that momentarily flush me into suburban boston, even though i’m many miles away. Tremendous story Joe, you don’t even realize how many of us can relate!
Also, Ben Folds is amazing. ‘The Luckiest’ is by far his greatest tune.
Aug 19th, 2008
MIKE
Congrats Joe on the SI gig. Honestly, though, you need to be writing the back page column. Reilly was a fixture there, and that column has suffered in his absence.
Aug 19th, 2008
Shaun P.
Congrats, Joe! I’m looking forward to the first SI.com column already.
Aug 19th, 2008
Mike S
Wonderful read Joe. Congratulations!
Aug 19th, 2008
BeesGal
Joe Posnanski wrote:
I’ve written this before, but let me say it again: The following post is personal and, I imagine, of absolutely no interest to anyone except immediate family — and even a couple of them probably don’t have interest. I’m just warning you in advance. You can skip this one. We’ll get back to sports, I promise.
OK, I know Midwesterners hate to bring attention to themselves with self-promotional chatter, but, for pete’s sake Joe, . . .what in the world made you start with such a misleading disclaimer?! Everyone in the whole d*mn sports-reading will be thrilled to know this new! Congratulations Joe. And thank you for bringing your best stuff to the game, every day. . .BeesGal
Aug 19th, 2008
Jim Scully
I guess that you can answer the famous Folds question, “Has Boxing been good to (you)?” in the affirmative, Joe.
From one Folds fan to another; from one baseball fan to another - congrats.
Aug 19th, 2008
Matt
It seems there are a lot of Deford fans in here, but if anyone has not read “The World’s Tallest Midgest”, get thyself to Amazon or a bookstore pronto and pick it up. Not just “The Boxer and the Blonde”, but a horde of great pieces like “The Best Against the Best At Their Best” and “The Depression Baby”. Outstanding sportswriting, some of the best around.
And you know what? As soon as Joe was making allusions to SI, I thought, “SI has needed Joe ever since Deford left”. Perfect.
Congrats, Joe. You’re the best sportswriter in America.
Aug 19th, 2008
will betheboy
Congratulations on the good news. It couldn’t have happened to a better writer.
Aug 19th, 2008
John Comas
Hey Joe, I happened along your blog about two months ago because someone commented about it as a must read on the Sons of Sam Horn site. It is the only blog I read. This is my first post to any blog.
That said, congratulations on the SI.com news, that is awesome and well deserved. You have done to me with words that others have done to you. You’ve succeeded, keep it going.
Aug 19th, 2008
Neekolaaz
Congratulations, joe! You deserve it. Keep up the good work!
Aug 19th, 2008
Bill C.
There seem to be enough kudos going around, but unless I missed something, nobody commented on the “urban myth” of seeing the Great Wall of China from the moon. So , after adding my own “atta boy, Joe” I will.
Atta boy, Joe.
1) Is this an actual thing that people think? I’ve never heard anyone say you could see the GWOC from the moon. It seems pretty obvious that this can’t possibly be true, but there are large numbers of Americans who can’t find Texas on a map, so who knows. Maybe people do believe this. If this IS an actual urban myth that people think and talk about, it probably arose sort of accidentally from the truth. For more on that, see #2.
2) What I have heard, and what I believe is true, is that the GWOC is the only man-made object visible from space with the naked eye. And I think in this context, “space” means “orbit.” Orbiting the earth, obviously, is many thousands of miles closer than the moon. So possibly the same type of people who can’t find Texas on a map, heard that the GWOC was visible from space, and somehow substituted “moon” for “space.” And an urban myth was born. If there really is an urban myth. Because I’ve never heard anyone say you could see the GWOC from the moon and I’m pretty sure I don’t know anyone who actually thinks that.
3) Finally, if you’re telling me that it’s an urban myth that the GWOC is even visible from space, well, I don’t know what to say about that except that I think I can pull out a Trivial Pursuit - Genus Edition card that will beg to differ. I’m pretty sure that one of the questions in that game, probably in the green “SN” category, is “What is the only man-made object visible from space?” Or possibly it says orbit instead of space.
And it certainly seems to make perfect sense that the GWOC would be the only man-made object visible with the naked eye from orbit. Even a structure as massive as those towers in Sri Lanka with the bridge between them, or the World Trade Center in days gone by would occupy only a dot of space looking down from orbit. But the GWOC would be distinguishable in the same way a river is, because of the distance over which it spreads.
Aug 19th, 2008
Ryan Dolan
Congrats, Joe! That’s great news. SI is lucky to have you.
Aug 19th, 2008
GH
I hate to join the general din here, but I’ve got to say it: Joe, you make me proud to be a Clevelander.
Aug 19th, 2008
Saburo
Don’t ever change, Boopsie…
All the best!
Aug 19th, 2008
ClevelandMo
Congratulations Joe!!!! I truly love your writing so this is good news. It will also be great to have a positive voice for Cleveland on si.com.
Aug 19th, 2008
Joe Pel
Poznanski,
Neither Frank Deford nor Rick Reilly can carry your jockstrap. You’ll be the best writer at Sports Illustrated, by a fair margin. (Dr. Z will be number 2.)
Aug 19th, 2008
hopeforCleveland
congrats, Joe!
your writing is amazing
Aug 19th, 2008
pokerpeaker
Do I get some free Pixiefood for nailing this? I am relieved to hear you’ll still be writing for the Star, and congrats. Please link to your first column.
Sports Illustrated is the main reason I am a newspaper writer as well.
Aug 19th, 2008
Brian
Great post. And congratulations to you, Joe. Sometimes all it takes is that ‘click’ and your life finds its sweet spot.
Since this is by far one of my top 5 blogs that I check daily, I’m stoked to have a good reason to visit si.com weekly to check your columns.
Way to go, bud. And let us know how that Springsteen concert goes.
Aug 19th, 2008
Phillip
Congrats, Joe! That is great news. And Ben Folds takes me back to many of the same places - home to North Carolina for one.
Aug 19th, 2008
stepbaker
Congrats, Joe. You’re the best sportswriter in America, and it’s about time you got a national column. You may be excited to write for SI, a publication I haven’t read outside of a doctor’s waiting room in about a decade, but it is SI which should be honored to have you. Let’s hope you make it a must-read again.
I’ve just updated my bookmarks to add SI.com.
Aug 19th, 2008
Tim
Congratulations Joe! Thank you, as well, for bringing what I’m sure will be continued class and excellence to the magazine that I’ve been reading for 20 years and once dreamed of writing for myself. Please, oh please, don’t let them turn you into the next Rick Reilly.
Aug 19th, 2008
Brad
It’s about time your writing was shared with a bigger audience. It’s the best sportswriting out there. Period.
Aug 19th, 2008
D.B. Cooper
S.I. lives!!!!!!
Congratulations.
My only request is that S.I. run its own comment thread, which all of us agree to ignore. I don’t think I could bear to read “SOXX Rool!!!” on here.
Aug 19th, 2008
JAY B
“What you can see from space” info here:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/visible_from_space_031006.html
Aug 19th, 2008
Tom Shatel
Joe, it’s an honor to know you and read you, in that order. Sports Illustrated has always been the gold standard of sports writing in this country, where we all dreamed of working. I’m glad that’s still true. And I’m glad, with so much wrong in our business today, that somebody’s doing something right. Awesome news! Hope this doesn’t mean you won’t have time to bring the girls up to the zoo.
Tom S.
Aug 19th, 2008
Tim S.
Congratulations! And thank you for this post, this story. Like you, I came to writing (a different field) without really knowing what I was doing, just that the times I felt best in my life were when I was creating stories. I’m a great fan of your writing, so it’s inspiring to hear not only where you’re going, but where you’ve come from. It reinforces my somewhat foolish, idealistic notion of the world as a place where you might trip once in a while, but as long as you keep on your road, you’ll get somewhere wonderful. Kudos, again, and say hi to the Great Wall for all of us.
Aug 19th, 2008
Chris
Congrats Joe!
Looking forward to the new addition to your workload …
Aug 19th, 2008
Jon Morse
Congrats, Joe. It’s about time you got a “national” pulpit (not that this blog isn’t, but marketing marketing marketing).
Aug 19th, 2008
Paul White
Congratulations Joe. It’s a well-earned bump in visibility. It’s always nice to hear when someone’s dream comes true.
Aug 19th, 2008
Sam
I could think of something witty to say- perhaps throw in a Ben Folds lyric or two- but instead, I’ll just say: Congrats, Joe. Awesome news.
Aug 19th, 2008
CharlesH
I’ll join in the chorus congratulating you Joe. As so many of the posts have said in their own way, we are always drawn to the way you write, your turns of phrases, making us wish we could do the same, while treasuring the fact we’ve found someone who does. Bravo!
Aug 19th, 2008
Thomas
Congrats, Joe!
There have only been a few moments in my life when something I read made me stop, soak it in, re-read it, and sit still and quiet in amazement.
The first I remember was written by Charles Dickens.
The most recent was written by Joe Posnanski.
Aug 19th, 2008
Mike
Ditto: Congrats, and I hope you know that your writing for SI doesn’t make you a better writer — it makes SI better.
Aug 19th, 2008
Conrad
yay Joe! I can start reading SI again . . .
Aug 19th, 2008
Micah
Congratulations, Joe! For my money, you will immediately become the best writer that SI has. And any extra writing of yours that I get to read is a very good thing.
Aug 19th, 2008
Osmodious
I am envious….not of your success and your deal with SI, which is both well earned and well deserved, but of that ‘moment’ that you had. Let me ’splain…no, there is too much…let me sum up: I have been waiting my whole life for that ‘moment’. I have expended much time, effort and, yes, money in my search for that one thing that is *right* for me, that ‘aha moment’. I have more hobbies than most people have pairs of socks, and more books than most libraries. I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about as many things as I can, not only because I’ve always desired to know *everything*, but also in a search for something that resonates with, since there’s no other word, my ’soul’.
So, yes I am quite envious that you have achieved that. But more than my envy, I actually feel happy…I am pleased that someone so deserving is getting some recognition and success (sometimes it seems like that never happens anymore), and I am pleased that it actually does occur: that people have that *click* that sparks their life and that success can follow from that. It gives me hope that it can happen for me, too (and others, of course). Congratulations, Joe…as I said before, it’s well earned and well deserved!
Aug 19th, 2008
Dave Carney
Congratulations from Cleveland. Good to see SI paying attention to good writing again.
Dave
Aug 19th, 2008
Bellweather Johnson
DB is absolutely correct. Separate comment threads are absolutely necessary, and those who post on the SI page are hereby traiors, and no-good scurvy dogs. (aaaaarrrggh…)
That way, we’ll never have to shut up about how awesome we were knowing the blog before it was mainstream. Kind of like the old burn-out who always lets you know about how he saw Nirvana open for Screaming Trees at The Que Bar in Iowa City in 1989…
Aug 19th, 2008
Linda
Congrats and great blog, Joe. I’ve enjoyed following where your talent has taken you all these years — certainly a long way from our “Top 10″ lists at UNC Charlotte. Keep doing what you’re doing — you’re the best.
Your fan and friend –
Linda
Aug 19th, 2008
ian
congratulations, joe. please don’t change the formula. you’re a legend.
i hope you’ve seen ben folds live. i’m not sure about springsteen, but ben folds might be worth delaying a reunion with your wife and daughters after two weeks away to china.
Aug 19th, 2008
mcgatman
Congratulations Joe,
It could not happen to a better, more deserving person. Well except maybe Michael Phelps. Actually you better hope he doesn’t suddenly get an urge to be a blogger.
I look forward to even more Joe…
Aug 19th, 2008
Carlos (Dominican Republic)
Joe,
Congratulations and I hope the best on your new endeavors. I’ll enjoy your great writing as usual.
Regards
Aug 19th, 2008
Man in Black
Joe- your writing and this blog is a little piece of heaven- congrats.
Ian- as one of the vultures in ‘The Jungle Book’ said: Don’t start that again.
Aug 19th, 2008
Minda
I agree with Mr. Shatel. A visit to Omaha is still in order, even when you are an elite national columnist.
And of course, a heartfelt and giddy “OHMYGOODNESS! Congratulations!”
Aug 19th, 2008
Rich Copley
Bravo, Joe! That’s one heckuva an accomplishment. It’ll be great reading you in the forum you deserve.
Aug 19th, 2008
Man in Black
I almost forgot:
Osmodious:
‘Let me ’splain…no, there is too much…let me sum up:’
Very Funny.
Aug 19th, 2008
Creston
1) Congrats on the SI gig Joe!
2) Will you link to your SI column from your main page?
3) Rick Reilly once wrote amazingly? Really? The same Rick Reilly who now gets paid 4 million per year to write 800 words of absolute crap for espn a week? Whodathunkit.
Aug 19th, 2008
Daniel
Congrats Joe! Just don’t change anything, ok?
Aug 19th, 2008
Creston
“Finally, if you’re telling me that it’s an urban myth that the GWOC is even visible from space, well, I don’t know what to say about that except that I think I can pull out a Trivial Pursuit - Genus Edition card that will beg to differ”
It’s an urban myth. Astronauts in the Space Shuttle cannot see the Great Wall of China with the naked eye, and they’re about as close to earth as you can get while still technically be “in space.”
And while I’d hate to crush your bubble, but Trivial Pursuit is wrong with quite a few of those cards. So I wouldn’t use it as the foundation for all your knowledge.
Aug 19th, 2008
Creston
Note that I said “with the naked eye.”
Apparently if they take a camera, all manner of things become easily visible.
Aug 19th, 2008
n2royals
Crap, now the rest of the world will be let in on the second best kept secret in KC. Pizza and a Two Hearted Ale at Waldo Pizza is first.
Aug 19th, 2008
Noel
Forgot to mention earlier that I’m looking forward to reading a “I may not have as many blog posts since I’ll be writing for SI” warning. I hope this warning proves to be as baseless as those you gave us because a) You had to work on your Big Red Machine book or b) You were going to Beijing or c) You really really have to get caught up on your life, etc.
Aug 19th, 2008
Jeff
I don’t really comment on here but I read every post and I want to congratulate you Joe. Well done sir.
Aug 19th, 2008
Max
Congratulations, Sir Joe.
Aug 19th, 2008
Phil Gurnee
Congratulations to one of my favorite writers. I wish I had, had that moment of clarity, and done an eddy turn instead of being swept down the current of a life I wasn’t that interested in.
Aug 19th, 2008
Doobie Keebler
SOXX Rool!!!
Aug 19th, 2008
Bill C.
Creston,
So what you’re saying is Joe really just misstated the urban myth. The myth has nothing to do with the moon because, as I said, that you could see the GWOC from the moon is not realistic enough to gain any traction.
It makes much more sense that the notion of seeing the GWOC from orbit would be the myth, if it is a myth, because that at least appears believable.
And I have no illusions as to the accuracy of Trivial Pursuit questions. Who can forget the famous Moops question fought over by George Costanza and the Bubble Boy? I just meant to show a concrete way in which the visibility of the GWOC from space is promulgated. And promulgated by an organization or entity with a semblance of knowledge, not just the guy in the next cubicle saying “hey, you know what’s the only object visible from space?”
Still, I find it oddly disappointing if one cannot actually see the GWOC from orbit with the naked eye. That always struck me as a cool “fact” about the marvels of human engineering.
Aug 19th, 2008
Bill C.
And just as a follow-up, that link from Jay B suggests that you can see the GWOC from space, but lots of other long and wide things too, like highways and airports.
Aug 19th, 2008
Minda
http://deadspin.com/5039037/#viewcomments
Joe, you’ve gone and made Deadspin with this.
(I sent in the tip…)
Aug 19th, 2008
Ty
Someone lived on the yuppie side of pineville-matthews road….congrats.
Aug 19th, 2008
Don
My favorite article by Joe was when he slammed Jason. Jason (the idiot) said that “King” Carl was stupid and only wanted to sell tickets.
Joe pointed out how ridiculous that was.
The bad thing is that Jason is still writing how the Chiefs only care about selling tickets.
Please fire Jason.
Aug 19th, 2008
WTSherman
Plaudits, Joe!
“Being awake never felt like this before.”
Aug 19th, 2008
F.X. Weatherwax
Congrats Joe.
Meanwhile in the Life isn’t always fair department, Kansas City enjoys having Joe P. and Jason W., two of the best sportswriters in the country, while Los Angeles has to suffer through fools like Plaschke and SImers.
Aug 19th, 2008
Danny
Great news. Congrats, Joe.
The new, extended audience should consider themselves extremely lucky.
Aug 19th, 2008
Siberian Khatru
Ben Folds was my best friend in the 7th grade in Winston-Salem, NC. So there.
Aug 19th, 2008
Pete
Congrats from a loyal reader.
Also, it’s nice to see Tom Shatel, our local guy in Omaha, share his regards. He’s one of the good ones, too.
Can’t wait to watch a new audience discover your talents.
Pete
Aug 19th, 2008
Richard
Mazel Tov!
Aug 19th, 2008
Andy
Congrats Joe. I was looking for a good reason to renew my subscription to SI. Now I have one.
Aug 19th, 2008
Gabriel
Congrats, Joe.
I always look forward to reading your articles, and everything I read makes me feel better about myself. Because your stories are so real and human, your success inspires me.
Aug 19th, 2008
John
Congratulations, Joe. It’s good to know that your excellent writing will now have a much wider audience and more will be able to see what sports journalism looks like at its best.
Aug 19th, 2008
Anna
Tonight is the first night I have read anything you have wrote; I am brand new to the world of sports blogs and I followed the link from Deadspin. Congratulations on your amazing news; after reading this post (while sitting in my office, with tears running down my face. I am that girl. I cry when the NBC theme song to the olympics comes on.) you most certainly have (at least) one more devoted follower. Can’t wait to read more.
Aug 19th, 2008
Aaron
Joe, Congrats. Never posted before, and only been reading your blog for a couple of months, but I love your writing and look forward to seeing your work on si.com…
Aug 19th, 2008
Nate
Joe, have really enjoyed discovering your work in the past year or so and am looking forward to what you continue to put out. Thanks for sharing the big news, we all celebrate with you.
Aug 19th, 2008
Bobby Imbody
My wife and I danced to “The Luckiest” as our first wedding dance. Talk about taking me someplace.
Congrats, Joe.
Aug 19th, 2008
Owen
Whenever you warn at the beginning that this post will be of no interest to anyone that I should get ready for another Posnanski show-stopper. Congrats on si. You deserve it.
Aug 19th, 2008
Joe
Congrats Joe! Good thing I have a subscription to SI. You’ll be in print in no time (Tell Peter King he sucks ass). I feel lucky to have grown up in KC and read you from the early days before you hit the big time. Just make sure to keep the blog up no matter what.
Aug 19th, 2008
David in NYC
Congrats, Joe. You earned, you deserve it, and the world will be a better place because more people will get to read your marvelous work.
And who cares about Nirvana and Screaming Tree? I saw Bruce open for Biff Rose (?!?!) at Max’s Kansas City in NYC in 1973.
Five bucks says nobody here knows who the hell Biff Rose was.
Anyway, congrats again, Joe. Couldn’t happen to a better writer!
Aug 19th, 2008
caryn
i hate to throw in a “me too” but i didn’t have time to read all day and only now sat down to enjoy this.
mazel tov and a hearty congratulations. i can’t find a way to say that while you think that no one outside your family will care there are hundreds of writers waiting for that break or that chance or that glimmer who will read your story, resonate and/or understand, and be smiling with hope at the end of it. thank you from this one.
selfishly, i am happy that this blog continues and that SI is just reprinting. selfishly. but i would have waved goodbye to the blog happily if that hadn’t been the case.
and i know you probably can’t read backstreets in china but for the love of the flying spaghetti monster, have margot read you the setlists. crush on you into quarter to three?!! by the time bruce gets to KC even the last five songs of the show will be worth seeing.
Aug 19th, 2008
cm
Congratulations Joe.
I have enjoyed your writing for a long time in the Star, and I look forward to reading you in the future. . .wherever your words are living at the moment.
As a person you have been great to me and my family, so I cannot think of someone better (actually, I can think of at least a couple. . .but that doesn’t sound as good, or make you feel as great, so pretend that I didn’t say that last bit) to achieve their dreams.
Congratulations again.
Aug 19th, 2008
Kelly
Congratulations, Joe!
And “The Luckiest” is my favorite love song.
Aug 20th, 2008
Bellylard
Very Cool. Probably that who the hell am I moment is best said as
“Did I make me up, or make the face til it stuck? I do the best imitation of myself”
Aug 20th, 2008
Jake
Joe-
I can’t believe it took SI so long to recognize what we here have already known…you embarass many of the idiots out there who think they’re (sports)writers. Congrats…you deserve it!
Oh, and in case you didn’t already know this…Ben is coming to KC on his fall tour — 10/22 at the Uptown Theater.
Aug 20th, 2008
SoxfaninKC
Congratulations Joe from a longtime reader. I’m happy for you and happy for us. An extra column a week appearing in SI means more Poz writing for everyone to devour.
Aug 20th, 2008
Sarah
Congrats, Joe! I’m a fellow KC Star staffer well known for my dislike of sports, but I’ll read you and Rick Reilly and Frank Deford any day. Believe me, there aren’t many writers who can pull me into the sports pages.
Sincerely,
An admiring copy editor (we’re not all evil, you see….)
Aug 20th, 2008
Nick
Congratulations, Joe! Everybody wins with this news!
Aug 20th, 2008
Jason
Joe, first of all, congrats….you are truly gifted at what you do and I’m happy to hear that you are getting rewarded for it.
On an entirely unrelated note, just wanted to come here and express how bummed I am that LeRoi Moore of the Dave Matthews Band died yesterday. I know this is more of a Bruce fan club (with some Hold Steady converts…huzzah!), but I felt this was a place I could express the sadness of it all. The world lost a little piece of its’ soul yesterday.
RIP LeRoi.
Aug 20th, 2008
Rusty
I’d like to join the others and extend my congratulations.
I am a native Kansas City, Kansan who left for college in Chicago just when the whole internet thing was getting off the ground in the mid 1990s. Back then I didn’t know the first thing about the world wide web (who did?) but managed to find my way to kcstar.com during those first few weeks freshman year when home sickness was still an issue. Originally the draw was Whitlock, but I specifically remember becoming aware of you around the time of the Big XII b-ball tournament in 1997. I had to be one of your first online readers!
I’ve never made it back home, but in the dozen years since I left KC, logging on to the Star to read Posnanski has been part of my daily routine, whether it was in Chicago, Alaska, Montana, Boston, and now in Houston. In a very real sense, you have kept me connected with home. Thanks.
Three columns of yours stand out as vividly in my memory as Deford’s and Reilly’s do in yours. First, your annual Thanksgiving column - usually because I’m back in KC and get to enjoy in hardcopy form with the smell of turkey wafting in from the background. It has become part of my Thanksgiving tradition at this point and I chuckle every year you mention the free parking on the plaza. You’re probably the reason the suits haven’t tried installing gates on the garages!
Second, your column about Jacque Vaughn wandering aimlessly around the court shaking hands in the aftermath of KU’s upset by Arizona back in 1997. As a devoted Jayhawk fan, that was an incredibly difficult loss to take and your portrayal of Jacque in that column reflected the confusion and devastation I think a lot of us felt.
Finally, the column you wrote when Roy Williams left for UNC in 2003 sticks in my mind because it was the only time I read something you wrote that came across as a little bitter - or at least didn’t have the usual Posnanski jovial outlook. I remember it ended with you saying that in the end, Roy Williams turned out to be nothing special, just another basketball coach. Several years later I went back through your archived columns and couldn’t find it anywhere. I always wondered if you regretted writing it and had it removed.
Thanks for indulging me and just know that you’ve already impacted another generation of sports readers. Congratulations.
Aug 20th, 2008
Drake33
*throws hands up in air* Well, there goes the neighborhood.
Congrats; this is well deserved. You should write a book or something.
Aug 20th, 2008
JeffSol
Congratulations, Joe, on the well-deserved recognition. I grew up in NY, and still root for teams there (not the Yankees) and currently live in Las Vegas, and yet you are on my “must read” list in a way that nobody in NY is. I have a colleague who grew up in KC and has read you religiously for years, and discovered that I read you columns and blog and wondered why. I answered him simply, “because Joe is the best sportswriter today in America”. Thanks for all the entertainment you provide.
And kudos to this blog’s readership — where else would I see “The Princess Bride” and many others so effortlessly quoted in a discussion….
Aug 21st, 2008
Laurie
What a great story. I just found your blog by way of the “Pixiefood” article..and then reading this I was amazed that you, like us, were a transplant from Cleveland to Charlotte! (We’ve been here 20+ years now). Still love the Tribe!
Aug 21st, 2008
Bboys
I guess I might be a little late joining the party but Congrats Joe. Read (bought) the first book, terrific, have been reading the blog everyday for so many months, best ever, and will read (buy) the second book.
As many have said, SI and those of us who read you work are the real winners here!
Please keep up the great work!
Aug 21st, 2008
KWM
Joe,
I know that feeling. The first time was in KC, possibly Thanksgiving break, probably hungover. Who would’ve thought that a sportswriter could inspire me to buy a piano - just so I could one day wander into a crowded hotel lobby and play “Jungleland”?
The second time was today. Thanks.
Aug 21st, 2008
Creston
“And just as a follow-up, that link from Jay B suggests that you can see the GWOC from space, but lots of other long and wide things too, like highways and airports.”
With a camera, sure. With the naked eye, no. At least, not according to NASA TV.
Then again, I guess it depends on what you consider to be “visible”. A city like New York is obviously a dark grey smudge on the land, so if you can see the smudge can you say that you can see the city? How much detail do you need to be able to see to declare you can “see” it?
That does it, I’m booking a seat on that Russian thing and flying out there myself.
As for the Moon thing, Joe likes to exaggerate
Aug 22nd, 2008
Mauichuck
See Joe I just don’t see you as a Cleveland guy. I’m a Cleveland guy. I worked in the mill - Republic Steel’s Furnace #5. Did construction with Local 310. Went to Cleveland State and CWRU. Been in a couple a bar fights in places like Murray Hill and Fleet Ave. Did a little time in the old county slammer on E21st and Payne. Most of my buddies from back home have similar curriculum vitae. You’re time in Charlotte and especially Cincinnati – Skyline Chili indeed! - has corrupted whatever Clevelandness you once possessed. Too bad, cuz you had potential.
Aug 23rd, 2008
Doug French
I saw BFF in concert in KC at a Lollapalooza or something back in the mid90s. They rocked. I hadn’t thought of them in a long time.
I used to read SI back in the 80s. They rocked. I hadn’t thought of them in a long time.
Thanks. Now I have two things to look forward to reconnecting to soon.
Aug 23rd, 2008
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