Reading Plaschke’s sports writing


I’ve written about this before; I’m writing about it again. The Sports section has some of the best writing in the entire newspaper. It’s active writing, often with anecdotes, often that tell a story.

We root for the Angels baseball team in this house. We’re not fanatics, but we’ve gone to games and we watch games on TV. So I scan the Los Angeles Times Sports section for Angels stories.

Yesterday (8/27/06), a piece by Bill Plaschke caught my eye and got me reading: “Angels Win This Battle by Choosing Not to Fight.”

The piece begins like this: “They scored a dozen runs, slapped around 16 hits, slid into half a dozen doubles, sprinted to a couple of stolen bases, ran around Angel Stadium like kids trying to outrace the last shadows of summer.”

I love that beginning. What a wonderful lead. It’s visual, active; it’s got the beat.

I suggest to my beginning students that they read the Sports section. You’ll find few passive verbs and dull, abstract writing in the Sports section. Pieces like Plaschke’s demonstrate active, visual writing.

I read the Sports section–to improve my writing as well as to read about our Angels.

Find Plaschke’s columns, go to latimes.com/plaschke.

(The photo above is from a Friday night Angel’s game in Anaheim.)

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Reading Plaschke’s sports writing

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