THE REAL "SCOOP"


A sports writer once said:

“IT TOOK MUCH DIGGING TO GET TO SCOOP”

"He's always been a writer's dream. Plump ego, often outrageously candid, smiled quicker than a desperate politician and the sort of disposition which made people with holes in their shoes feel good......

Over the years, you said "Hey, Scoop!" so readily that in time the words seemed to run together into an unbroken salutation. He could hit .300 in a blizzard and as a talker, well, he was never under .400 lifetime.

But he was too easy and I feel about the part of Al Oliver's image which I helped create sort of like the way
1 do when I burp after eating chow mien. Nobody ever caught Oliver just right. So, while Willie Stargell was becoming beloved, and Roberto Clemente respected and held in abounding affection. AI Oliver was mostly misunderstood.

The stories about him never seemed to probe quite deeply enough maybe because it was so easy to talk to
him that few interviewed him. The things he told you weren't personally illuminating, merely sparkling and eminently quotable.

“I’m 25 and I can do it all,” he said one afternoon several years ago. And he was 25, which meant life hadn't rubbed too many callouses on his soul, and hell on baseball field, he could do it all. Or most of it, anyhow.
But none of us got beyond the snappy quotes and a lot of people figured he as just cocky.

Fortunately for the sweaty literati Oliver didn't change too much over the years, well, Scoop, you were a delight. Pressured by impending deadlines and dull ballplayers, the guys who write for a living will miss you.

Maybe we never got the words to describe Al Oliver just right. But, it's like the poet said, catching the sunshine ain't easy."

By Phil Musick of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette