Tributes have poured in for long-time Newsday columnist Stan Isaacs, who died Tuesday night at the age of 83.
Keith Olbermann has ample reason to have fond memories of Isaacs. One of his columns literally launched Olbermann’s career.
On August 12, 1981, Isaacs, one of the first sports media columnists, wrote a column about a 22-year graduate of Cornell who had an unconventional approach in his early days on New York radio.
Isaacs wrote:
Olbermann does straight news and scores, but it is with his eye for the offbeat that he distinguishes himself from the run-of-the-mill sportscasters with pear-shaped tones and empty heads.
Olbermann said the column was reprinted as filler in the national edition of the Sunday Washington Post. CNN sports vice-president Rick Davis, a displaced Washingtonian, wanted to liven up the network’s sportscast. He saw Isaac’s column. Six weeks later, Olbermann made his debut for CNN.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
In an email, Olbermann added more about his relationship with Isaacs:
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Stan and I had lunch that day and he wanted to hear more of my sportscasts. At the end of it he said he was disappointed in only one thing. “You sound too much like…” here great disgust crept into his tone “…like an announcer.” He forgave me that.
Stan and I used to talk regularly about the amazing influence one mention in a column like that could have in those days. And he would always quote me on Fred Merkle.
About 10 years ago we were in the press box at Yankee stadium and he was reading aloud from the press guide. He came to the part in which the Yanks admitted they had no idea who their PA announcer had been before Bob Sheppard. “You’re this great researcher/baseball expert/television muckety-muck. Certainly you can find out this perplexing hole in history. I give you one year.”
I found it.
With Roger Ebert gone in the same week, the world is, sadly, a little more safe for mediocrity.
