It’s time to step away — mostly
“Hello, I Must Be Going.”
— Groucho Marx in “Animal Crackers”
Someone asked me recently how long I’ve been at The Chronicle. I don’t know if it’s a cool number or just plain scary, but I’m about to begin my 50th year.
It’s time for a change. Friday was my last day in The Chronicle’s employ, as I am officially retiring at the age of 73. But it’s hardly a farewell. I couldn’t bear to give up my voice in The Sporting Green, as long as the paper would have me. So I’m putting on my contractor’s hat, paid by the column, and my new arrangement has me writing the 3-Dot Lounge each week for Sunday print (a switch from the traditional Saturday), allowing for the occasional retirement-style break.
As I’ve told friends and associates in recent weeks, it took me more than 50 years, dating to my collegiate days at Cal, but I finally grew tired of the locker rooms, the news conferences, the late-night driving, the travel — everything but the writing. I enjoy that process as much as I did as an 18-year-old kid working at the Daily Californian, and I still watch events with unbridled enthusiasm. But I’m moving a lot slower these days, with a few physical issues in play, and I couldn’t imagine continuing as a regular columnist, at this enterprisedriven newspaper, when I’m most comfortable working at home. So I initiated this transition on my own, with management’s blessing and the assurance from my wonderful wife, Martha, that everything would be all right.
As I try to sort it all out, I can’t help but feel a bit nostalgic as I recall some of the years’ greatest sports moments and how they connect with my Chronicle career. So much of late-in-life existence is about memories, a few of which I’d like to share.
There was a recent night at Dodger Stadium when I thought the Giants had become unbeatable. That place felt like a second home in my youth, heading out to watch Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale confront the National League’s galaxy of stars, and there were many autumnal evenings when the warm Santa Ana winds graced Chavez Ravine — a very special kind of climate if there were no catastrophic fires (like the one that took my family’s
house in ’78) filling the sky with dread.
Through all the years, including countless visits as a sportswriter, I’d never experienced anything like this past Oct. 11, the night of Game 3 in the Division Series. The winds blew hard, but not from the east. They came straight out of the north, decidedly bitter and startlingly unseasonal. Max Scherzer nearly got blown off the mound in the first inning. Garbage was flying all over the yard. People were bundled up and wondering what the hell was going on. For that one night, it was winter.
Giants third baseman Evan Longoria was in a 1-for-33 cascade but manager Gabe Kapler started him, and he homered for the game’s only run. Somehow he slashed that thing through a tempest that left many others indignant, especially the Dodgers’ Gavin Lux, staring in shock as his apparent home run became the final out. The Giants handled that bizarre night with such aplomb (remember Brandon Crawford’s leaping catch?), I felt they really did have a shot at winning it all.
I’ve never covered much NFL, by choice, but the Super Bowl took me back to January 1985 at Stanford Stadium — such an unlikely site for the game’s biggest showcase. I was part of a Sporting Green task force for the game that turned Dan Marino, the reputedly godlike Miami quarterback, into a man humbled into submission, by Joe Montana’s example and by the 49ers’ defense.
It’s emotionally overwhelming, in retrospect, to recall the travel experiences I’ve been granted by The Chronicle. As Tiger Woods and his son, Charlie, charmed the sporting public with their amazing performances in the recent PNC Championship, my mind drifted back to St. Andrews, Scotland, the birthplace of golf, and the 2000 British Open.
I decided to follow Tiger that first day, figuring I wouldn’t stray from his gallery unless lured by the distant commotion of drama. That never happened. I watched all of his 72 holes from inside the ropes, often no more than 25 feet from his backswing. There are 112 bunkers on the Old Course — 112! — and his spikes never touched sand. At one point on Sunday he was 20-under par, about to finish off a wire-to-wire masterpiece I will always consider the most relentlessly brilliant golf ever played.
The women’s tennis circuit was a centerpiece of awakenings — Emma Raducanu’s stirring early-round performances at Wimbledon, then her dreamlike U.S. Open victory against another sudden bolt of lightning, Leylah Fernandez, in July. Both teenagers looked very much like the real thing, and we’ll see whether that becomes reality. I’ve seen the truth, having watched (at The Chronicle’s expense) Martina Navratilova, Monica Seles, Steffi Graf and Serena Williams break onto the scene and blossom into all-time greats.
Then there was that stunning afternoon at the 2001 Wimbledon when an elegant upstart named Roger Federer knocked off Pete Sampras on Centre Court, fourth round. No longer was he a mystery, lurking in the shadows. Seven years later, darkness falling as Rafael Nadal somehow outlasted Federer to win the championship, I heard press-room veterans (Bud Collins at the forefront) confirm my suspicion that it was the greatest match in history.
As the Olympics staggered through the pandemic in Tokyo, I remembered Carl Lewis, the Dream Team, an arrow flying through the sky (at the Opening Ceremonies) and Barcelona ’92. The World Series called up Willie Stargell, from my first one in ’79, and carried on through George Brett, Kirk Gibson, Jack Morris, the ’89 A’s and the pleasure of being in Texas, Detroit and Kansas City when the Giants drenched each other in Champagne. Today’s Stephen Curry is much like the young Steph, childlike, staring in wondrous disbelief at Draymond Green and Klay Thompson as that first title — in 2015 against LeBron James, in Cleveland — charmed a nation.
Only weeks before Chronicle sports editor Art Rosenbaum hired me in April 1973, I was in London watching Premier League soccer — and I’ve never been the same. Thanks to the Wimbledon trips, I dropped into crowded London pubs to watch England’s national team take a series of soul-crushing defeats in big matches, often in penalty shootouts that stamped the misfiring players as villains for life. Sure enough, it happened again in this year’s final of the European Championships against Italy. Once immersed in that state of mind, I’m in the French town of Marseille in 1998, covering the Netherlands-Brazil World Cup semifinal from the streets — then moving on to the grand stadium in Paris to watch Les Bleus win it all.
I could go on — and will, evening cocktails in hand — but I’d rather take a moment to acknowledge some exceptionally sharp Chronicle editors who fixed my mistakes (good grief, so many of them) and steered me toward sensibility when I veered off course. I think of Dan McGrath and Glenn Schwarz, Mike Kern and Kurt Aguilar, John Curley and Dave Hyams, Joe Shea and Dave Dayton, Steve Kroner and Dave Curtis, and today’s three-pronged leadership of Christina Kahrl, Jon Schultz and Mike Lerseth — all with a single method in common: imparting wisdom with a gentle touch.
In those early years, I knew I was in the right place when I traversed the third floor at Fifth & Mission and saw the likes of Herb Caen, Art Hoppe, John Wasserman, Joel Selvin and Carl Nolte working at a newspaper that was founded in 1865. I worked almost exclusively as a Sporting Green copy editor for seven years, not at all certain I’d get a chance to write but loving the feel of old-time newspaper production: The clattering of typewriters, the chatter in the newsroom, ripping copy off the wire machine, literally cutting and pasting stories together, watching it all come together in the back shop at midnight and eventually becoming the final word on every bit of sports copy that would hit people’s driveways the following morning.
It’s funny how I remember that just as clearly, and with as much satisfaction, as spending time around the world’s greatest athletes. I view my career as a full life in newspapers, on the inside and out, a veritable inkstained wretch gone digital. And as my transition begins with Sunday’s 3-Dot lounge, another song comes to mind, by the great Dan Hicks: