11/21/24
August 05, 2003
Dan Cook has written his last column, ending a 51-year run in the San Antonio Express-News. His claim to fame -- during the 1978 NBA Finals, Cook coined the expression, "the opera ain't over till the fat lady sings."
Somehow I thought that expression was much older.
posted by kloeprich at 01:23 PM on August 05, 2003
Dan Cook is a legend and an occassionally surly bastard, but he was also a helluva sportswriter and a fine television sports personality. As a child, I would insist on watching Channel 5 just to catch his reports; it felt like having a conversation with my grandfather (also a surly bastard, but a helluva grandpa). Between Cook's retirement and the death of Maury Maverick, it's been a tough year for Alamo City journalism.
posted by avogadro at 03:17 PM on August 05, 2003
A co-worker of mine was telling me a bit about Cook, saying that while being a great writer, he was also a bit of a sod. Apparently during some of his news-reports he would often misread scores and misattribute team names (i.e. say White Sox when talking about the Cubs). Perhaps most interesting was a series of columns that Cook would write in which he would report debating with a friend at a local SA eatery. They would go back and forth arguing differing sides of an issue. It took a few years for the public to figure out/be told that the friend didn't really exist and the columns were just Cook's way of arguing both sides of something. Somehow I thought that expression was much older. Me too. Seems like I remember it being in some Bugs Bunny cartoons that would predate the late 70s. Could be wrong though.
posted by Ufez Jones at 04:08 PM on August 05, 2003
That old friend was Benjamin Broadhind, and from the looks of his last interview with him, it's pure filler. Can any of Cook's readers vouch for these Broadhind columns? From my limited exposure, it looks pretty cheesy.
posted by rcade at 05:13 PM on August 05, 2003
I used to work at a small daily outside of SA. I thought the Broadhind columns were stilted and dated. It was as if someone was lifting commentary out of a 1940s newspaper.
posted by wfrazerjr at 06:28 PM on August 05, 2003
Somehow I thought that expression was much older. As with most things of this nature, there seems to be several opinions. Here's one.
posted by justgary at 11:02 PM on August 05, 2003
I used to work at a small daily outside of SA. I thought the Broadhind columns were stilted and dated. It was as if someone was lifting commentary out of a 1940s newspaper. Yup, but humorous in a "Lil' Abner" sort of way. I rather liked the Broadhind columns, but the earlier ones were a bit more robust in the sports commentary and said less about the quality of the pies at Earl Abel's. Which daily did you work at?
posted by avogadro at 08:47 AM on August 06, 2003
MMM, pie. I was the managing editor of the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise last year.
posted by wfrazerjr at 10:03 AM on August 06, 2003
I interviewed Dan Cook by phone about the expression a few years ago for a question-and-answer column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Perhaps I caught him on the wrong day, but he was surly and completely bored with the topic. All of his responses were of the "if that's what you heard, then it must be true" variety. Reading one of his last columns, in which he decries Dennis Miller as a "toilet-mouthed jokester" whose hire was made to earn"an extra point of TV ratings in our sick society," I'm guessing that he had evolved into a crochety old crank over the years. I love the item in the story about how he hangs out with Blackie Sherrod and other venerable sports hacks and gets drunk. Sounds like a sweet life.