I lost a boyhood hero, and later a sports writing rival with the death yesterday of Sid Hartman. Sid played a role in my life, particularly while growing up and since 2006 when I started writing this blog.
Sid was as competitive as any athlete he covered. He wanted the scoop and didn’t welcome competition. After I launched my blog 14 years ago, he reacted on “The Sports Show” and said: “Dave Shama is on the Internet.”
I think TV show colleagues Mike Max, Dark Star and Patrick Reusse either scratched their heads, or let out a collective yawn upon hearing the pronouncement.
Sid first knew me when I was a columnist and sports editor for the University of Minnesota Daily in the late 1960s. Inspired by him, I wrote a well-read notes column followed on campus and downtown at the Minneapolis Tribune. In 2006 Sid didn’t know much about the Internet, but he figured I offered unwelcome competition in the hunt for Minnesota sports news.
For several years after I started my column, Sid would spot me among a group of sportswriters and needled with this greeting: “Nobody reads you.”
Well, that wasn’t quite true but I certainly didn’t have the mighty platforms of Sid’s Star Tribune and WCCO Radio. As a young man from north Minneapolis, he grew up poor, didn’t attend college, and yet battled his way into positions of authority with Minneapolis newspapers in the 1940s and on the radio station starting in the 1950s. I can never remember a time when he wasn’t reporting and offering opinion on both media outlets.
As a kid I often read “Sid Hartman’s Roundup” before anything else in the Tribune. Back then his column included business scoops. I didn’t quite understand that but later learned he made a lot of money in real estate. While the business blurbs didn’t do much for me, I loved the items in his column and the many head photos of various newsmakers.
When I started my column at the Daily, guess who used head shots just like the guy downtown? Sometimes those little photos got away from proof readers like the time a white Gopher football player was identified as Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). But my column was a success and toward graduation from the U, Sid hinted there might be a position for me at the Tribune.
While working for the Daily, I once wrote something that irritated Sid. Soon after I received an unexpected telephone call at home from Sid voicing his displeasure. He was a master at pursuing people by phone or in-person. Long ago he was in the New York Jets locker room with other reporters waiting for star quarterback Joe Namath to appear. Finally, an exasperated Sid went in the showers where the water was running, and Namath was hiding, and did an interview!
It was a compliment for Sid to inquire about my post-graduation plans. Truth was I didn’t know whether to pursue a career in journalism or business, so I didn’t follow up on a couple of “feelers” from the Tribune. A few years later I was sports editor of the suburban St. Paul Sun Newspapers group, and scooped Sid when I cited sources predicting the ouster of Murray Warmath as Gopher football coach about 12 months before it happened. Five years ago I was the first to interview Vikings legend Bud Grant and write about his dangerous landing in a small airplane when the wheels malfunctioned.
I came to learn Sid didn’t direct praise to me and a lot of others all that often. But it sure makes it easier to remember those rare moments. I will forever recall a kindness he directed my way after an ownership change at the Minnesota North Stars in 1990. I was dismissed from my marketing position and Sid said to his listening audience on WCCO, “If you want to hire a great young man, hire Dave Shama.”
A colleague of mine with the North Stars once sat in the Met Center press box with me and watched Sid practically bounce up the stairs toward us. He was nearly 70 years old but charged up the stairs like a guy half that age. His remarkable energy allowed him to pursue the news nearly 24-7.
Even if there were no Minnesota teams playing, Sid was on his beat. Years ago the back seat of his Cadillac was filled with out of town newspapers. When not thrusting a microphone in someone’s face, he sometimes occupied his time sifting through those newspapers. The inside of the car looked like a homeless person lived there but somewhere in that newsprint was a nugget that could fill his jottings inventory.
When Sid was driving around, he liked to park his car as close to the destination as possible. This might include handicap parking spaces. Even though he didn’t have a certificate, close buddy Bobby Knight once told him it was okay for him to park in such areas. Knight’s rationale? Sportswriters are “handicapped.”
Even at 96 years old Sid was on the move. When the Gophers held an early January news conference in 2017 to introduce football coach P.J. Fleck, there was Sid using a walker and accompanied by a nurse. The legend had fallen to the ground several weeks before and broken his hip, but not his will. Sid had demanded his stay in the hospital be brief, but you were both surprised and certain he would attend the press gathering.
It was grit and energy that allowed him to be so competitive. In the early years of my blog, I was in the press room at Target Center before a Timberwolves game making small talk with Star Tribune sports editor Glen Crevier. Sid noticed our friendly conversation and thought I was pitching his boss for a job. To the astonishment of Crevier and myself, Sid blurted out something like, “Go hire the guy!”
Occasionally, there would be a quiet moment before a press gathering where Sid and I conversed (no easy task with his impaired hearing). I never knew what to expect, and once at Winter Park he really shocked me! We were sitting within a couple of seats of each other, and Sid turned to me while holding a small bag of potato chips and said, “Here, open these.”
I feel a loss over Sid passing away. I know it’s not rational but I thought he would live awhile longer. Yes, he was over 100, but when someone is part of your life for so many years there can be an expectation things will not change.
I will miss Sid in the days ahead and think of him often. I can close my eyes and see a 40-year-old Sid, dressed in a an expensive suit and alligator shoes, strutting around the Williams Arena floor before a Gophers game and talking to coaches and other newsmakers. I can also hear his voice from a more recent time when he congratulated me for my work leading the Twin Cities Dunkers, “You did a good job,” he said.
Told you, I remember the compliments.
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