Ken Rosenthal on Jayson Stark

Ken Rosenthal, writing for The Athletic:

Sometimes, I wish I could think like Jayson — and sometimes, with all the stuff ping-ponging around his brain, I’m grateful I cannot. But always, I wish I could write like him. Jayson’s writing is conversational, entertaining and often laugh-out-loud funny. He doesn’t take himself seriously. But he takes his audience extremely seriously, and considers no detail too small in his service of the reader.

Among his many attributes, Jayson has a knack for engaging relatively obscure veterans who are keen observers of the game, and then elevating them to oracles in his columns. After a long night of October baseball, 99 percent of us will gather in the clubhouse around the star of the game. Jayson will be off in the corner, talking to whoever he has identified as this year’s Corky Miller or Casey Candaele or Skip Schumaker or Mark DeRosa — and naturally, getting the best stuff.

Stark was a longtime baseball columnist for The Inquirer here in Philly. Back in the ’90s, he got an entire two-page spread in the Sunday Inquirer all to himself. My roommates and I used to fight over who got to read it first. I like The Athletic a lot, but I’d subscribe just to read Jayson Stark.

★ Friday, 19 July 2019