David Halberstam
Boston Globe
April 25, 2007
January 1980. The voice on the phone was sonorous and unforgettable.
"Bob Ryan?"
"Yes."
"This is David Halberstam. I'm a friend of Marty Nolan's."
David Halberstam? The David Halberstam? And he thinks he needs to identify himself to me by referencing my friend, the omniscient political columnist/editor/resident Globe wise guy? Me, who like millions of Americans had hung on every word of "The Best And The Brightest ," the indispensable account of America's disastrous involvement in Vietnam?
"Pretty flattering," agrees Nolan, now retired and living in San Francisco, which, sadly, is not far from the spot in Menlo Park where Halberstam was killed in an automobile accident Monday. "David Halberstam was my hero."
Back to January 1980. Halberstam was calling to say that he was working on a book about the NBA and that he would be spending a week or so on the forthcoming Celtics' West Coast trip to gather information for what he referred to as a "cameo" on the Celtics and their rookie sensation, Larry Bird, that would be folded into a larger NBA work built around the Portland Trail Blazers, who were dealing with many issues, most notably the loss via free agency of Bill Walton. He wanted to know if I'd possibly have some time for him on the trip.
David Halberstam wanted to hang out? Well, perhaps, I thought, I could probably accommodate him.
The book was "The Breaks Of The Game," and there are many who feel there has never been anything better written about the NBA, before or since.
Halberstam was, of course, not a "sportswriter," per se. He was one of the great journalists this nation has ever produced, and it is hardly an exaggeration to suggest that he was one of the great Americans of the 20th and 21st centuries. Some people really are unique and irreplaceable. David Halberstam was such a man.
Halberstam was the American journalist of our time. He wrote about Vietnam ("The Best And The Brightest" ), about communications goliaths ("The Powers That Be" ), the demise of the American auto industry ("The Reckoning" ), the civil rights movement ("The Children" ), the reality and ramifications of the 1950s ("The Fifties" ), the Clinton White House ("War In A Time Of Peace" ), 9/11 ("The Firehouse" ), and he has left us a posthumous tome on the Korean War ("The Coldest Winter" ) that will hit the bookstores in September.
In his spare time, he embarrassed those of us who have nothing better to do than follow sports by writing informative and insightful books about our chosen field. In addition to "The Breaks Of The Game," he wrote about rowing ("The Amateurs" ), baseball ("Summer of '49" , "October 1964" , and "The Teammates" ), Michael Jordan's effect on the NBA ("Playing For Keeps"), and football ("The Education Of A Coach"), this last a fascinating insight into the mind of Bill Belichick. His next sports book was going to be about the epic 1958 NFL Colts-Giants championship game. If only . . .
Whether writing about politicians, generals, business leaders, or sports figures, Halberstam decried excessive hype and phoniness. One of his favorite words was "authentic." He loved Bird, for example, because to Halberstam, Bird was the epitome of authenticity.
Had he done nothing but report on the Vietnam War, his reputation would have been secure. Originally a True Believer, he changed his mind when he saw what was going on, and his reporting for the New York Times was not appreciated by the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. President Kennedy called Arthur Sulzberger himself, demanding that this upstart reporter (he was not yet 30), who dared contradict his generals, be recalled.
"When he called up to kid me about being on the Nixon Enemies List," recalls Nolan, "I said, 'I'm envious. You were on the JFK Enemies List. That was a lot shorter.' Do you realize how much courage it took to write what he was writing, given the timorous suites on West 43d Street [i.e., the Times offices] in those days?"
In time, he would bring smiles to the faces of the Times brass. Halberstam would share a Pulitzer Prize for his Vietnam reporting.
"The Best And The Brightest" stands the test of time. "I was talking yesterday to George Packer, one of our two Iraq correspondents," says New Yorker editor David Remnick , "and he was telling me that 'Best And The Brightest' is required reading for all Iraqi war correspondents."
I could certainly say the same for "The Breaks Of The Game," published in 1981 , in the context of being a necessary historical primer for any young NBA writer. How can you appreciate What Is unless you have an understanding of What Was? Halberstam had recognized before most just how the NBA was changing and how it needed to position itself in the '80s and '90s. And when Jordan happened, Halberstam was the man who, more than anyone else, put His Airness in the proper perspective.
George Plimpton and David Halberstam at Elaine's, New York City.
The astonishing duality of Halberstam, a man able to effortlessly move between the Real World in all its solemnity and complexity, and our little world of sports, with its own peculiar dynamics, both amazed and frustrated many of us Halberstam admirers.
"It's clear what his sports books did," suggests Remnick, a man of known duality himself -- he wrote a fascinating Muhammad Ali book. "He had perspective on sport without demeaning it in any way. He enjoyed it, and he knew a lot about it, but he knew it wasn't everything in life. He emulated Graham Greene, who mixed in works he called 'entertainment' with his serious novels. When David was done with one of his other books, he would give himself a little present, a gift. He would write a sports book."
So in addition to already being friends with the likes of Russell Baker, Gay Talese, John Chancellor, and folks of that ilk, Halberstam would become friends with bombastic larger-than-life figures such as Belichick, Ted Williams, and Bob Knight.
"After you've been slogging around Vietnam and challenging generals," reasons Nolan, "you're not going to worry about a basketball coach [or a .344 lifetime hitter] yelling at you."
He delighted in mixing and matching his, shall we say, intellectual friends with his sports friends. "He loved pulling people together," says Belichick, who says what started out as a professional partnership blossomed into a genuine friendship. "He knew everything and everybody, but not in a know-it-all way."
Nolan knows a few people of prominence himself, but he says he is not ashamed to admit that Halberstam was his hero.
"Real heroes don't brag, and he was the Silver Star and Medal of Honor for intelligence and integrity in our accursed trade," notes Nolan. "Whenever I hear 'the best and the brightest' used without irony on a talk show, I realize what impact he had on America. He did not 'get on the team' in Vietnam, or anywhere else, but as a teammate and as a person, he had, like our pal David Nyhan, what Emerson called a 'genius for friendship.' "
Those of us who knew him have lost a personal friend. But the country has lost something more. It has lost an authentic American.
Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.
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