Michael Moynihan: It was 30 years ago (if you can believe it)

Every sportswriter is a trader in nostalgia. It comes with the territory: Instant memories. Even if you file a match report on the whistle it’s already fading into the past — “matches previously played” was Christopher Hitchens’ phrase.

That’s why you see in every sportswriter a fondness for the heroes of the scene when they started hammering the keyboard, the peers who lived it. Oddly enough, the only gods higher in the pantheon are those who came long, long before.