Ralph Wiley could be intimidating–he knew what he knew and he wasn’t afraid to say so.
But that’s not it. He was smart and eerily insightful, capable of seeing things and interpreting them with a sharp, clear-eyed eloquence that left his fellow sports scribes feeling like imbeciles.
He was also irreverent and funny, the first to point it out when some ballplayer (or writer) started taking himself too seriously.
We worked for rival sheets in the Bay Area for a few years, and as much as I enjoyed “the Wiz’s” company, I didn’t look forward to seeing him enter a press box. “He’s going to write rings around you,” a little voice would whisper, and I knew I’d pick up the next day’s paper and say, “Damn, I wish I’d written that.”
He went on to become a star at Sports Illustrated, he wrote books and movies, made frequent TV appearances, produced a popular and provocative Internet column. In everything he did, he elevated the dialogue.
And he never changed, never lost sight of who he was. In a business where jealousy and backbiting are as common as bad sweaters, the Wiz had no enemies.
Ralph Wiley died Sunday night, and I’m having a hard time with it. Not because he was only 52, but because he was so full of life. Such a waste to have so rich and productive a life cut short.
But I feel fortunate to have read him. And I’m better off for having known him.
