I’ve been around long enough to see several hot writers come along. Steve Rushin is brilliant. Howard Bryant—fantastic. Bill Simmons—excellent. Uh … I’m babbling. I’m not saying writers are like baseball players, where they come out of nowhere, catch a good wave, then disappear. Hell, Rushin still kicks ass. So does Howard. And Simmons has a huge best-seller on his hands. But it’s almost like scribes suddenly get noticed in a big way, and they go from regional to national to, in our realm, stars.
Joe Posnanski is a star.
He has been one in Kansas City forever. But over the past few years he’s exploded onto the national scene, where people in and out of the business go out of their way to read his work. My quick take: Joe’s greatest attributes are that he doesn’t scream and yell and rant—he reasons. With background knowledge, but also research. Detailed research. He delves into numbers and statistics, but doesn’t kill you with them. And he turns great phrases, without being obvious. In my last si.com column, on Dave Pear, I made a clumsy rusty dental knife analogy. Joe would probably never resort to such slop.
He also happens to be a universally liked guy, which helps.
Anyhow, this is my long-winded way of saying that I loved his recent Jason Kendall blog entry. And that it’s a very worthy read …
