STAN FREBERG HERE...My Friend, Jim Murray
Stan Freberg here. Recently, we lost the greatest sports writer who ever lived: my friend, Jim Murray.[:60 SPOT BREAK]
Any morning I'd open the L.A. Times to find a Jim Murray column was a great morning. I knew Jim from 1953 when he was with Time magazine and wrote the first Time story on me. Later, he became sports columnist for the L.A. Times, turning out over 10,000 hilarious columns, and winning the Pulitzer.
Once, after three operations brought limited eyesight back to his one good eye, he wrote, "'Old Blue Eye' Is Back."
20 years ago he came up to me in a bookstore and said, "I need a Bible with references. You're a preacher's kid, which one should I get?" I led him to the King James Version my dad used. Recently, I ran into him at a luncheon and introduced him to my daughter. He told her, "20 years ago, your dad helped me find a Bible in a bookstore." What a memory.
America will miss the great writing of Jim Murray, the man who invented the sports column.
Stan Freberg here.
Copyright (C)1998, Stan Freberg/Freberg, Ltd. (but not very) Distributed by Dick Brescia Associates and Radio Spirits, Inc.