A Moment of Silence

The sports world has suffered a great loss. David Halberstam died yesterday in a car crash outside of San Francisco at the age of 73.

Halberstam was best known for his Vietnam reporting, but perhaps most loved for his sports books.

He tackled the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry better than anyone before or since in Summer of ‘49. He used one of the most important seasons in baseball history to show how baseball helped the country return to normal after WWII.

Tributes to Halberstam can be found all over the Internet, and the blogosphere. His influence will be seen, felt and enjoyed for years to come.

Here’s a piece he wrote for ESPN’s page two on Allen Iverson during the 2001 NBA Finals. Halberstam, a white, Harvard-educated, “old school” journalist peers through the burgeoning “hip-hop” NBA culture and identifies with the heart of Allen Iverson.

Many of Halberstam’s peers, to this day, haven’t been able to see past the rough-and-tumble exterior of many modern-day athletes to see the man beneath. This piece is a brilliant example of how culture changes, but the heart of a champion remains the same.

Here are some tributes to Halberstam:

• TrueHoop
• Deadspin
• Baseball Prospectus