Mr BioFile Interviews by Scoop Malinowski
By Scoop Malinowski
Status: Sportswriting legend. Won Pulitzer Prize for Commentary 1989, JG Taylor Spink Award 1987. Columnist for Los Angeles Times 1961-1998.
DOB: December 29, 1919 (died Aug. 16, 1998 in Los Angeles). Birthplace: Hartford, CT
Childhood Heroes: Jimmy McLarnin. Welterweight champion in 1933. His name had the same initials as mine. And because he was Irish didn’t hurt. I met him later, in 1960. We played golf at Lakeside in Burbank. I got to know him. And Jimmie Foxx.
Nickname: Bud – short for brother from my sisters.
Childhood Ambition: I wanted to be a playwright like Eugene O’Neil. He was a famous playwright in New York who wrote Strange Interlude, Desire Under The Elms, Long Voyage Home.
Pre-Writing Feeling: Well, I usually get the interview the day before. I think about it that night. Then that night I visualize in my mind the beginning, the middle, the ending and the point of view. And go from there. I write in the morning usually.
Favorite Athletes: Mike Piazza. Jack Nicklaus. Ben Hogan. I revered Hogan. There was a mystique about him… they wrote books on him. Joe Louis. Tremendous respect for him. A very decent person. I think the greatest prize fighter there ever was. Very humble about his abilities. A decent, good man. Not educated but he had such a faculty for saying the right thing.
Favorite Movies: Diamond Jim. With Edward Arnold. Algiers. Gone With The Wind, like everybody. Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movies. Musicals.
Favorite TV Shows: Jackie Gleason. Sid Caesar’s Show of Shows. I Love Lucy. I did a cover story for TIME on Lucy. I mainly watch TV for old movies and sporting events.
Toughest Competitors Encountered: Pete Rose comes to mind immediately. Pete did not like to lose. Played with a great ferocity and love for the game. Jerry West. Tremendous quickness. Wide set eyes. He could see behind him almost. Elgin Baylor. Bob Cousy. Jack Kramer. Rod Laver.
First Job: Campus correspondent for the Hartford Times in 1939.
Early Sportswriting Memory: I had a sportwriting model… a guy a lot of people probably never heard of. Dan Parker of The New York Mirror. He was overlooked for guys like Damon Runyon and Ring Lardner. Dan Parker was very, very good and very, very funny. As a kid I just glommed onto his writings. I used to go get The Mirror to read them (age 12).
Greatest Sports Moment: Hit a hole-in-one once. At the Riviera (1971). I was looking in the trap and my friend asked what kind of ball I was using? Black Titlist. He found it in the hole.
Most Painful Moment: 1955 US Open. 18th hole of a playoff at the Olympic Club in San Francisco Ben Hogan was going for his fifth Open. Would’ve been history. No one’s ever won five Opens. Hogan drove the ball into the deep rough. The rough was up to his knees. I was standing behind the green. I asked why is Hogan taking all those practice swings? Those aren’t practice swings. Hogan lost the hole and lost the match to Jack Fleck (by three strokes).
Most Treasured Possession: Oh brother. Hmmm. You know, I don’t quite know how to answer that… I’m very proud of the Pulitzer certificate (1990). It’s right next to Ben Hogan’s letter I keep in the living room hallway.
Education: Trinity College 1943 (English).
People Qualities Most Admired: I admire people that, as I’ve written, don’t get the headlines for hard work, raising families, obeying authority. They never get their names in the paper. Always been taken for granted. Not flashy. All the people that flout authority, they seem to be so revered. They’re usually a pain in the ass. What society likes – probably always has – they like the outlaw. Society likes Howard Stern and Dennis Rodman. I don’t. I like guys like Jim Gilliam and Cal Ripken.
Funny Career Memory: I remember I was following Arnold Palmer around on a practice round before the LA Open. He hit the ball to the left, by the fallen trees, beer cans and squirrels. The ball was underneath all that. Palmer was playing with Paul Hornung, Dave Marr and his then-wife Suzy. Palmer looked up and said to me, What would your idol Hogan do here? I said, Hogan wouldn’t be here.
Notes: The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, created in 1999 by Murray’s widow, Linda McCoy-Murray, raises money for journalism scholarships for college journalists. Currently 31 universities participate annually in a national essay competition in which the winners receive $5,000.00 scholarships… Murray wrote a column in the LA Times about Del Mar Racetrack the day before he died.
