William Randolph Hearst used to say that a man who could write about sports could write about anything. Many a good newspaperman, many a prose stylist started as a sports writer. Ring Lardner, Heywood Broun once followed big-league ball clubs around the circuit; and sharp-tongued Pundit Westbrook Pegler was a vinegar-tongued sports columnist for eight years.
This week another sports reporter, who became a short-story writer, war correspondent, poet and columnist, celebrated his 40th year as a newspaperman: tall, affable Damon Runyon, specialist in the mad gibberish of Broadway.
Runyon was born in Manhattan, Kans., 1,200 miles from Broadway's Manhattan. When the U....
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