I enjoy watching sports on television (or at least some sports on television), but I can't really say I'm much of a fan. I do, however, appreciate a good sports columnist. Over the years I've learned that the best of these don't really write about sports but about people and life and ... that sort of thing. And they know how to write.

I grew up reading one of the best - Jim Murray in the Los Angeles Times, though it was only many years later that I learned that "one of the best" wasn't only my opinion. Murray really was in the pantheon of sports writers. And maybe that caused me to be a bit spoiled. A number of years ago, however, I started reading Joe Posnanski, and for me, at least, I'd found a replacement. Posnanski primarily writes about sports, but he's also written beautifully about his father and his working class roots, about his children, about small events that are easily overlooked. And though when he writes about sports he writes about the obvious heroes, he particularly likes to showcase the unsung ones. And he knows how to find special and unexpected angles. And even here there's a stumble.