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Athens, GA (Oct 24, 2008) - Move over Buzz Bissinger, you may have to rethink your old school ideas. Oh and Mike Wilbon, you will probably have to stop saying that you are too old to understand the concept of blogs. And Tony Kornheiser, here is a writer that has figured out how to keep writing for his audience after accepting a "voluntary" buy-out from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Yes, there is a new sports blog on the scene that should immediately move to the top of any sports fan's reading list and be included in their blog rolls or suggested links. Sportswriting legend Furman Bisher, who turns 90 years old on November 4th, has started a blog!











I found out about his new venture accidentally. He was in the Sanford Stadium press box last weekend for the Vanderbilt - Georgia game. I had to meet this legendary writer, the only writer who, in 1949, got an interview with Shoeless Joe Jackson about the 1919 "Black Sox" scandal for Sport Magazine. In our brief conversation he quietly mentioned he had his own web site now and it was keeping him busy.

























BREAKING THE SILENCE: In 1949, Furman Bisher, left, became the only sportswriter that Shoeless Joe Jackson talked to about the 1919 Black Sox scandal that rocked baseball.


"Furman took the buyout from the AJC a couple or few months ago, and was horribly bored," said Tixie Fowler, his stepdaughter, in a phone interview earlier this week. "He loves to write and have interaction with people, and it was missing from his life. So I suggested he start and email newsletter, and that evolved into the web site."

She worked with a friend to set up the site on WordPress, a popular blogging tool. He writes 2-3 articles a week, and they are first sent out in an email newsletter. They are then posted on the blog. And Bisher's wife Lynda loves it. "Furman (pictured left) may be 90 years old, but he's never happier than when he's writing and this newsletter has given him a great outlet and keeps him happily pecking away on the computer.", she said in an email interview.

"At first, he did not know how to adjust to a different kind of writing. He would ask 'What is my deadline?', and he could not believe that people did care about his writing and that they were interested in what he had to say," added Fowler

But people are interested, especially because he brings something to the table that most current sportswriters do not. "I so enjoy reading his columns (and soon his blog) because in today’s journalistic environment, no one writes from any kind of historical perspective," says Bob Rathbun, the television voice of the Atlanta Hawks. "Everything today is 'right now' and it’s refreshing to me to read about what has gone on before. That is something that needs to be cherished and recognized. I wish more writers had the inclination to do this. We still have some of this one the air with the Larry Munson’s and Vin Scully’s of the world, not so in print."

Writing from a historical perspective brought Bisher a lot of criticism earlier this year when he wrote that he was upset that opening day was being played in Tokyo. What the critics missed is that he was writing from his life experience and memories, which very few, if any of them, shared. It may have been politically incorrect in their eyes, but he did have the courage to write his convictions.

So take a visit to his new blog, and then you can say you are reading a blog by a 90-year old sportswriting legend.

Related Link(s)

• Bisher Unleashed: Furman Bisher's Web site
  
  
• Furman Bisher's Interview With Joe Jackson