12/21/24
June 10, 2011
Charlie Pierce Remebers The National: Not to jam the place up with Grantland pieces, but this is a good one.
Pierce is the LeBron James of sports journalism, but for all four quarters.
I loved The National. It's weird that I still pine for it, since the web has provided enough high-quality sports coverage to fill 100 Nationals.
posted by rcade at 05:15 PM on June 10, 2011
It was tremendous; I had two colleagues who joined the staff at the start.
Unfortunately, the country's too big to try this again, but maybe if one did it on a state level, with wire-service pro/college stuff and state-level college and high-school coverage (top teams/games), it might work. Dailies have cut back on staff; coverage in these areas have declined. It would depend on the advertising base it could attract. Readers might appreciate having everything in their hands as opposed to spending an hour at the computer.
posted by jjzucal at 06:54 PM on June 10, 2011
I haven't really been following the launch of Grantland, but I thought Bill Simmons and Charlie Pierce had some sort of row a while back as a result of Pierce panning Simmons' basketball book. Surprised to see Pierce on the masthead, so to speak.
posted by holden at 10:02 AM on June 11, 2011
Pierce has definitely knocked Simmons on his (Pierce's) Globe blog; I think Simmons is still enough of a Boston guy to know Pierce is one of the best.
posted by yerfatma at 10:37 AM on June 11, 2011
R.I.P. The National
As an aside, I live in Spokane. I eat and drink on occasion at Jack and Dan's. And John Stockton is a client and aquaintance of mine. Good dude. If you happen to come through these parts look me up and we'll have a beer at the joint. Just look me up in the phone book. Or shoot me an email, since I don't know if THX-1138 is actually a listing.