There are many reasons why Dave Anderson is only one of three sports columnists to win a Pulitzer Prize. Here’s one:

In 2003, Ben Curtis was the surprise winner of the British Open. After the tournament ended, Anderson and I were trying to get inside the area where they were holding the trophy presentation. We wanted to talk to his wife, caddy and another else to gain insights about Curtis.

Somehow, though, we couldn’t find the entry point. Anderson then saw a small fence in a bunch of high British grass.

“Ed, come here,” he said.

At the time, Anderson was well into his 70s. He could have easily written his column without getting interviews from Curtis’ family and associates.

No, Anderson scrambles over this small fence, handling it much better than me, and he walks briskly through the tall grass to get the interviews in the trophy area.

Now that’s how you win a Pulitzer Prize.

I thought of that story after reading the latest entry of Still Cheering in the Press Box, an excellent series by the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism at Maryland. Anderson is featured, talking about his career and the athletes, writers and editors he has met along the way.

Please read the entire entry. Here are some excerpts:

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Just watching Dick Young taught me the business. He came up with a story every day. Young was the only one of the reporters working for a morning newspaper who regularly went to the clubhouse after a game. The others just wrote what they saw. On the road, Young sat by the pool and worked on stories during the day of night games. I played golf. Growing up, guys like Young, Cannon, Smith and Heinz were more important to me than Joe DiMaggio. They weren’t just great sportswriters, they were great writers. Craftsmen.

The big difference today is the writing. Too many sports columnists today are actors. They have to be on radio and television, so something has to suffer. Back then, the writing was what counted. Sports columnists were special and that doesn’t exist anymore. The nicest thing anyone ever said to me was, “you taught me to read.” Sports is a different world now.

We were decades away from ESPN and talk radio. The newspapers were everything. You had to buy the paper to know what was going on. Vinnie from Queens did not exist. Columnists were special, they had more freedom to write and share their opinions. But the writing counted most. It was the golden era of columnists. People read you and cared what you were writing and how you wrote. What greater accomplishment could you achieve as a journalist? I did it for 56 years and loved it. I still love it.

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The Dodgers’ I covered in the early 1950s spoiled me. Sometimes I’d be the only guy in the clubhouse, sitting on a trunk, talking to Jackie Robinson, with Pee Wee Reese in his rocking chair and Duke Snider and Gil Hodges all there, just talking. That was as good as it gets.

I liked Joe Namath, too, because as big as he was, he never lied to me. The season after he won the Super Bowl, I was at practice one day and could see his passes were floating. I asked him if he was all right and he told me, “No, I have a sore arm.” Of course, I wrote it. The next day, the Jets coach, Weeb Ewbank, was angry and asked me how I could write that? “Weeb,” I said, “Joe told me.” And Weeb says, “Yes, his arm was sore; but he doesn’t have a sore arm per se.”

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There are lots of stories about traveling with the teams in the old days. In 1956, I’m working for the Journal-American covering the Rangers and we’re in Montreal for the start of the NHL playoffs. The five of us working for afternoon papers had to take the team train back to New York that night and we arranged for a Western Union telegrapher to catch our stories packaged together when the train slows at Rouse’s Point (N.Y.) on the border. It’s in the middle of the night, it’s snowing and I’m standing between cars in the dark and toss the package of stories to him and hope somehow he teletypes the copy and it all gets in the newspapers. We arrive at Grand Central Station in the morning and pick up the paper.

There was the story. It was exciting. Even now, when I’m writing, I wake up on a Sunday and still get excited if I’m in the paper.