Quote of the Day: Samuel Johnson riffs on sports
The two most engaging powers of an author are, to make new things familiar, and familiar things new.
Sammy died before Brett Favre was even born, but he still put his finger on one of the biggest challenges in sportswriting. Making new things familiar certainly comes up—as writers trying to make sense of the rules in the new NBA and MLB collective bargaining agreements know.
But making familiar things new. That’s a challenge all too familiar to those who cover sports. Consider this fact of life I once heard from a baseball beat writer: “There are only so many ways to get that guy home from second on a single.”