Boston Sports Pages

Do you ever wish we still  had sportswriters and personalities like Will McDonough, Jerry Nason, Ray Fitzgerald, Peter Gammons, Tim Horgan Ernie Roberts (especially his Saturday morning column), Lesley Viser and Bob Ryan to read or watch almost every day? These individuals offered great insight into our local Boston sports scene as well as the national sports scene. By the way I certainly don't mean to slight any of the other great writers of this earlier era because their names aren't listed above. 

From my 20's to my 60's I would read both the Herald and Globe Sports pages from beginning to end. It was always a pleasure to read their observations along with the factual information theses writers passed along to their readers.

Of course the next generation for one of theses scribes is the great Sean McDonough. Sean seems so comfortable broadcasting hockey, football and basketball. Personally I think  Sean is the best on air commentator in all sports. He is well prepared and gives us plenty of background about the players and their lives. In my humble opinion, he is the one broadcaster i want to listen to whenever there is an important sporting event.

So where are the great writers of this generation. Yes my namesake Bob Ryan (no relation whatsoever that I'm aware of) of the Boston Globe, Peter Gammons and of course the always caustic Dan Shaughnessy are excellent writers but except for Shaughnessy neither Ryan or Gammons seem to write very often anymore.

I certainly hope the sports writers of the future aren't just individuals that have a recognizable name who frequently just repeat and/or just quote other sports writers.