The last ten years have seen many changes of the guard among the columnists of the Wall Street Journal. I miss the most the sports writer of yore Frederick Klein, who wrote in sparkling style about tennis or golf or any other sport du jour. Withing the quota of words for a mini-column, he could inform, entertain, and fit in epigrams and a punch line like no other.
On Sports captures some old articles, gathered under headings such as Hardball, Roundball, Ovalball, dimpled ball, fuzzy ball, world ball, college ball, speed balls, squared circles, true-life adventures, and oddballs!
An excerpt from "Squared Circles" ( a reference to boxing) from the article "Ali's legacy" 1979
"His goal often seemed to be to not only defeat his foes but also to destroy them professionally, and in a number of cases he succeeded.
"With Mr.Ali's example to recommend it, such behavior spread: The football spiked in the end zone, the gratitous slam dunk in basketball and the baseball batter standing at home plate to admire a homerun might be regarded as the 'Ali Shuffle' of those sports. I find them all tough to take.
"Mr. Ali toned down his act some in recent years, and it has become fashionable to excuse his excesses by theorizing that he was 'just kidding' or trying to hype the gate of his fights.....
"In the coming months it frequently will be asked if boxing will survive in the U.S. without Mr.ALi. Almost certainly, it will. Joe Loius succeeded Jack Dempsey as a popular heavyweight champion, Rocky Marciano succeeded Mr.Louis and Mr. Ali succeeded Mr. Marciano. Someone will succeed Mr.Ali.
"A better question might be to ask if sports in general will survive Mr.Ali's conduct as a heavyweight champ. As comedian Mort Sahl said of Richard Nixon about 20 years ago: ' His chances look good, but I'm not so sure about the rest of us.' " ( )