On the Death of Grantland: US Sportswriters and their Typewriters

To mark the sad end of Grantland (named in honour of the great American typewriter-belting sports writer Grantland Rice), here's a look at 91 US sports writers and their typewriters from over the years. Grantland, the sports and pop-culture blog owned and operated by ESPN, was started in 2011 by veteran writer and sports journalist Bill Simmons (above), who remained as editor-in-chief until May this year. ESPN announced on Friday it was suspending the publication of Grantland.

This, seemingly, is how the modern-day sports writer desports her/himself. (It's Mexican Ines Sainz taking a break from the hard slog of sports reporting in 2010.) The image below is a lot more like I remember it, squashed up on unsteady benches, uncomfortable seats, sometimes no seats at all.

Or sometimes this, perhaps

Looking through these images, can you pick which brands were the indoor (offices, homes) and outdoor (ball park press boxes, press rooms) favourites of the sports writers? Indoors, I'd say it's a toss-up between Royal and Underwood, while outdoors, Remington on top, but the Hermes Baby seems to have done quite well. My favourite image is the one of Harry Grayson, followed by Stan Isaacs.

Al Stump

Al Thomy

Arthur Daley

Babe Young

Barney Kilgore

Barney Kremenko, centre

Bill Corum (with Joe Louis and an Underwood 5, right)

Bill Cunningham

Bill Driscoll

Bill Heinz

Bill Nicholls

Bill Saroyan

Bob Considine

Bud Shaver

Charles Beane

Charles Doyle

Charlie Roberts

Chet Smith

Chuck Heaton

Cullen Cain

Damon Runyon (my No 2 favourite)

Dan Daniel

Dan Parker

Dave Egan

Denman Thompson

Dick Young

Ed Bang

Ed Burns

Ed Danworth (with Furman Bisher)

Ed Pollock

Ed Wray

Eric Zale

Faye Lloyd

Frank Deford

Frank Graham

Fred Lieb

Furman Bisher

Gene Fowler

George Lederer

 

Gordon Cobbledick

Grantland Rice (all-time great No 2)

Gus Steiger

Hal Lebovitz

Harold Parrott

Harry Grayson

Harry Keck

Henry Newman

Henry Smith

Herb Wind

Heywood Broun

Hunter S. Thompson

Jack Kofoed

Jerry Izenberg

Jim Coleman

Jim Leonard

Jim Minter

Jimmy Breslin (right, with Red Smith)

Joe McGuff

 

Joe Williams

John Drebinger

John P. Carmichael (is it a Barr?)

John Lake

Johnny Kilbane

Ken Smith

Larry Robinson

Lou Effrat

Mary Garber

Max Kase

Melissa Ludtke

Mickey Walker (Woodstock)

Ned Cronin

Oscar Kahan

Paul Gallico

Paul Rickard

Philip Wylie

Quentin Reynolds, my idol in my teens

Red Smith (all-time great No 1)

Rex Edmonson

Ring Lardner (my No 2 favourite)

Robert Lipsyte

Royal Brougham

Sam Lacy

Sec Taylor

Shirley Povich

Stan Baumgartner

Stan Isaacs

Sydney James

Unnamed US sports writer at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games

Unnamed golf writer

Unnamed something (dog?) writer

Westbrook Pegler (another of my favourites)