For those of you who’ve read me here and elsewhere, you know that when it comes to sports journalism, there is Ralph….and then there is everyone else. And given the background that many sports journalists of the generation before Ralph had? I’d trust them for good reporting on an arena that was increasingly dominated by athletes who couldn’t have shared a john with them in Mississippi about as far as I could throw them.

Halberstam was different though.

I don’t remember where I was when I first heard of him, or read him for that matter. But I knew that for a writer of his particular background he was incredibly honest about what he knew (and didn’t know). He was also very good at what he did. Not as good as Ralph as far as sports were concerned…but on a good day, he did more than ok. And truth be told, Halberstam’s more groundbreaking work on the children of the Civil Rights Movement or the Vietnam War are in some ways much more important than Halberstam’s sports columns. He will be missed.

Oh. Boris Yeltsin passed away as well.