Friedman out of bounds

"Many sportswriters are so thrilled to rub shoulders with their heroes that they present the same old, prosaic 'Gee Whiz!' story and don't go much further than giving the final score."

So says Jon Friedman in his Media Web (MarketWatch) column today. It's a throwaway sentence in a column praising Rick Reilly (not that there's anything wrong with that), and it's completely off the mark.

Every now and then, Friedman will take what I consider a big misstep when writing about sports writing; it's obvious he has some preconceived notions about the people who do it, some of which are kind of archaic.

ADDED:

I actually e-mailed Jon with my concerns, and he wrote me a nice (short) note back saying that while he understood that everybody in this business wasn't a hero-worshipper, he had known enough who were that he felt the statement was valid.

While I'd still argue that it's less true every year, I'm sure he doesn't want a penpal, so we'll leave it at that.