1) Jim Murray's Favorite Sporting Event

2) Who was Jim's favorite person to interview?

3) Who was Jim's LEAST favorite person to interview?

4) What were Jim's views on college athletics?

5) Jim's views on the biggest difference between convering sports today (mid 90s) and 30 years ago

6) What was Jim's writing routine like?

7) Jim's reflection on his career

Answers
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1) Jim Murray's Favorite Sporting Event:
"The British Open. I like covering golf. I don't always feel a lot of people in the public like it, so I try to ration golf coverage. I would opt for golf if I had but one sport to cover. However, I like baseball. I like the World Series when they are exciting and close. They have great dramatic confrontations like Reggie Jackson and Steve Howe, or Sandy Koufax versus Mickey Mantle, or Willie Mays versus Don Drysdale. These kinds of confrontations I enjoy very much."

2) Who was Jim's favorite person to interview?
"I've had an experience with Pete Rose. Pete's the type of individual that anytime you ran dry, you could always go down and get a column out of Pete Rose. I like him for that reason."

What is most memorable event Jim ever covered? "I tend to think of disappointing events. I think of Ben Hogan losing the United States Open up in San Francisco to a man...I never heard of. I remember a trainer...walking off the track at Churchill Downs after the Kentucky Derby when he had just been beaten by about that much. I remember the disappointed, stricken look on the man's face. So I often tend to think of people who just came with an incy of winning it all and lost. Those memories crowd in more than the victorious, champagne-swilling winners' locker rooms."

3) Who was Jim's LEAST favorite person to interview?
(Baseball player) Eddie Murray was just impossible and I don't know why. I never wrote a bad line about him, but he just was very, very hostile and unavailable - as far as I was concerned, not a very nice man. A lot of people had trouble with Charles Berkley. I loved Barley. LA Clipper owner Donald Sterling came up to me a few years ago when Barkley was still playing for Philadelphia and he was on the market and Donald says, "You know we have a chance to Charles Barkley." I said, "You do? Get him." And he said, "Well, we hear he can cause trouble, he can make trouble on your team." I said, "Get him!" He said, "Well now Elgin (Baylor, Clipper G.M.) is not too sure this would be a good thing, and we have to sit down and think about it." I said, "Donald, get him! He said, "You mean you don't think he will be a problem? I said, "I don't give a damn - he's eight columns a year to me."

4) What were Jim's views on college athletics?
"College athletics has always been, you know - corrupt is the word. And today, I just think it's disgraceful. If the guy's got a good jump shot or can hit the curve ball, they will get him a college, (even if) he doesn't belong there. A colleague of mine said recently, "You know, I think they are exploiting the athletes in college. I said, "They always did that." So he said they should pay these athletes. I asked how much, and he said, "How about $1,500 a month? Would you go for that?" And I said, "Yeah, I'd go for that if they give $1,500 a month to pre-med students, engineering students, because I have a feeling we're going to need those guys 20 years from now, and I'm not really going to need a guy who can beat Purdue."

5) Jim's views on the biggest difference between covering sports today (mid-90s) and 30 years ago?
"The money. Thirty years ago...the star player was making maybe $40,000 a year or maybe less and he knew that there would be a day when he would be retired...and that publicity and identification with the public would be very valuable to him. So he would sit down and consent to your interview and your questions. Today if a ball player is making $7 million a year, he doesn't feel he needs you. He feels he is getting all the money he will ever need - he isn't, but he thinks so. They seem to govern themselves accordingly. They consider you a nuisance, and I despair sometimes. I feel like shaking them and saying, "You know, we are the reason you are making $7 million a year."

6) What was Jim's writing routine like?
"When I worked for Time magazine and I'd write cover stories, I'd write all night, so I was kind of a night writer - I couldn't wait until the office was empty. But then I had to write for the preview edition...so I got in the habit of writing in the morning so I continued writing in the morning. They all take longer now. There used to be a day when I had this thing all sorted out in my mind when I had a good subject. I had beginning, middle and end all in mind. I could write a story as fast as I could type. But there were other days and there would be what I called a knife fight - it just wouldn't come together the way you wanted it to. I would spend almost all day on it - several hours anyway."

7) Jim's reflection on his career:
"I was going to be Eugene O'Neill. I was going to write these wonderful plays. And then if I were a newspaper man, I wanted to be a foreign correspondent. I wanted to go around in a trench coat, tell prime ministers what to do and cover wars and all that sort of stuff. But basically I wanted to write dramas, plays, screen plays. Never did, but I wanted to.

I graduated from college and I needed a job and walked upstairs at the New Haven Register and got $23 a week, and then I came west. I always felt I had to have a paycheck and that was a weakness of mine, I'm afraid. I come from a long line of people who work every day and get nervous if they don't have a check coming in, so I just stayed in the newspaper business."