Turf scribe legend Joe Hirsch passes away..
 

Joe Hirsch, the longtime columnist for Daily Racing Form and dean of American turf writers, died early Friday morning at St. Luke's Hospital in New York City. He was 80.

R.i.p.

RIP.

I just saw the article in the DRF and came here to post. Steve beat me to it.

RIP Mr. Hirsch.

RIP. We will miss you.

RIP Mr. Hirsch

r.i.p

I first met Joe in the early 1990s but got to know him better a few years later when I was working for the Daily Racing Form. He was having some trouble typing so I went to NYC to help work with some voice dictation software. That didn't end up helping much, but during the few days I was in town, we went to dinner several times and had the chance to talk.

Joe loved going to dinner and he loved assembling dinner parties. Toward the later years, it was hard to hear him if you weren't sitting next to him, but I think he truly enjoyed conversations generated by the people he'd brought together.
Over the years, I've had some fabulous conversations at wonderful restaurants with Joe. The last few minutes I've thought back on some of those dinners and while I enjoyed the company that sometimes showed up and the chance to go to restaurants I never would really be able to go to on my own, my favorite moments were the occasions when it was just us - the 20-something wannabe racing historian and the guy who had been there and had the T-shirt for everything since Citation.

Because of the physical difficulties presented by his condition, I'm sure some people wondered if his mind was slipping; but I can tell you that, at least as of the last time we shared a dinner, there was nothing wrong with his recall of racing that the rest of us have to settle with having read about.

The last time I was in NYC I tried to meet for dinner but he wasn't able to attend. I don't know how much further he was ravaged by Parkinsons in the four years since the last time we had met for dinner - along with a bunch of DRF people - but I watched his condition decline for over a decade so I harbor no illusions. What a terrible illness it is.

I wish I had something more, something grand, to say, but our acquaintance was so brief and glancing. I am glad, however, that our paths crossed at least a few times so I can say that I am among the many to have had the privilege of dining with Joe.

Paula..

Thanks so much for the thoughts on Joe Hirsch. Steve Crist and Steve Haskin today on 'At the Races' to talk about him.

My uncle died from Parkinsons.
Thanks for sharing.

A class act and gentleman in every way.....a true legend of the sport. His writing set the tone for the sport, which is rarely seen today. R.I.P Sir

He was a good writer, but naming a race after a living guy was moronic, especially a grade 1. It is like Al Sharpton naming buildings after himself.

You distinguish yourself more and more with every post around here. This one shows your complete lack of depth and knowledge or appreciation for anything meaningful in the game.

:D

there's a cure for what ails you...


may mr. hirsch rest in peace.

A great loss when he retired, and now he's gone. Sad day for the sport. He whetted my appetite for the sport when I was a teenager. Thank you, Mr. Hirsch, for making it come alive.

Hey Steve,
Invite this guy to Saratoga so I can smack the **** of him. Thank you KP

Thx Deb. In fact, I availed myself, and all of us, of just such a cure.

Entirely appropriate, especially after the comment in this thread.

The trolling tactics, not to mention the anti-Semitic goading, had reached critical mass.

like you needed my assistance!! ;)
glad to hear it tho. he was an annoyance.

and now, quiet chris... is.

Steve...I was calling for the "gong" on the Israel pounds Gaza thread...I wasn't too far off! Thanks!

RIP JOE...........GLAD YOU KNEW MY IDOL, JOE WILLIE:tro:

Ray Paulick currently has a plethora of links to stories about Mr. Hirsch on the left side of his site.

http://www.paulickreport.com/

This is said to be Mr. Hirsch's last column http://www.ntra.com/content.aspx?type=news&id=10581

Good god! Just saw this. At least it broke the camels back.


R.I.P Mr. Hirsch

Horse racing writers are what turned me on to this great sport.

In my case it was a writer named Jack Patterson who wrote primarily for papers in the Cleveland and Northeastern Ohio area when I was a kid.

Patterson captured beautifully the gambler's aspect and perspective of thoroughbred racing. He also captured beautifully the nostalgia, beauty and history of the sport.

I have the "obituary" he wrote for Secretariat on the wall to my immediate left. It was a celebratory piece that I obviously loved.

I didn't know much about Joe Hirsch other than name recognition from the DRF.

I wish I would have paid closer attention to his work.

From the comments here, I know it was good stuff.

http://cs.bloodhorse.com/blogs/horse...of-a-kind.aspx

Steve Haskin's commentary on his mentor Joe Hirsch...

Joe Hirsch One of a Kind
11 Jan 2009

At about 4:30 in the afternoon, the skies opened up, turning the Monmouth Park surface into a sea of slop. As a reporter covering my first race for a trade weekly, and having gotten to know the horses and their grooms up close and personal that afternoon, I was extremely disappointed to say the least.

Dejected, I made my way up to the press box, and the first person I saw was Joe Hirsch, who was sitting at the Daily Racing Form desk overlooking the track. The perfect shoulder to cry on, I thought. Joe would understand my disappointment. I walked over to him and said, "Hi Joe, it's a shame about the track."

Joe, who had covered thousands of races on a sloppy track, slowly turned toward me, looked up, and without hesitation, said, "Steve, it was a shame about Marie Antoinette."

Wow, did that throw me back on my heels and put everything in proper perspective. Yes, a sloppy track at Monmouth was indeed not quite as tragic as losing one's head on the guillotine. Where Joe came up with that one I have no idea, but it was just the first of many profound and comforting words of wisdom from the most amazing and unique individual I have ever met.

I'll never forget the day in late winter of 1994. I was sitting at my desk at the Daily Racing Form in Hightstown, N.J., when our editor at the time, George Bernet, called me into his office. He said he had just received a call from Joe Hirsch, who was about to start his 38th year writing "Derby Doings," the feature he founded back in 1957 that had helped catapult him from beat reporter to living legend. This was his signature, his single most identifiable piece of writing. Joe, in 1994, was beginning to suffer the effects of Parkinson's disease and other maladies. He called George and delivered the bombshell. "Give 'Derby Doings' to Steve," he said.

I was flabbergasted, shocked, and, most of all, honored. This was Lou Gehrig telling Yankees manager Joe McCarthy to bench him and put the kid in after a record 2,130 consecutive games.

For the next nine years, I never once looked at Joe without being in awe of him. Although his body withered and became more fragile with each passing year, his mind remained as fertile as ever. He could fall asleep during dinner and pick up the conversation without missing a beat. He could doze off while writing his story, wake up from the pinging noise of his nose hitting the keyboard, and then return to writing without even pausing to get his bearings.

How he put out a column every day, while traveling to places like California and Dubai, was nothing short of amazing. Anytime someone asked Joe how he was doing, he'd always answer, "Couldn't be better." And this was after taking 20 minutes to put on one of his cuff links.

He took me and my DRF colleague, Ed Fountaine, under his wing and always shared his wisdom, wit, and knowledge willingly. Between us, we have so many Joe Hirsch stories it would take volumes to put them all in print. Our dinners with Joe were an unforgettable experience. Besides horses and beautiful women, Joe loved good food. When you went out with him you were treated like royalty. There wasn't a restaurant owner or maitre d' who didn't welcome him with open arms. You could walk into Joe's Stone Crab in South Miami Beach, with a two-hour wait, and wouldn't even break stride as you were led to the best table in the place. Where Joe walked the seas parted. But this kind of respect was something Joe commanded, not demanded. If you wanted to offend Joe and get him upset, just try to pick up the check.

Joe existed on a different plane than other people, though he'd never admit it. Whether he was fraternizing with Sonny and Marylou Whitney or sharing a banana with the jock's room attendant at Monmouth, Joe made everyone he met feel equally as comfortable in his presence.

There was no one who used words so proficiently. Each one took on a life of its own.

As Joe grew older his driving became infamous. During the Oaklawn Park meeting one year, he totaled the car he was driving after falling asleep at the wheel and meeting a tree head-on. A few months later, at a Daily Racing Form dinner in Louisville, one of the wives mentioned to Joe she had heard what happened in Arkansas. Joe responded, “Yes, it’s quite a feeling waking up with an air bag in your face.”

On another occasion in Miami, Joe went to pick up George Bernet at his hotel before dinner. Not seeing the round grassy island in front of the hotel, Joe, instead of driving around it, drove right on top of it with a thud. He looked out his window, saw where he was, and commented, “Oh, turf course.”

Joe had words of wisdom for every occasion. Following Alysheba’s victory in the 1988 Meadowlands Cup, owner Clarence Scharbauer was in the press box being interviewed, and instead of discussing the race kept bemoaning the fact that the chart of Alysheba’s victory in his previous start, the Woodward Stakes, had him winning by a neck when Scharbauer insisted it should have been a half-length. Scharbauer spotted Joe standing off by himself and of course turned to him for understanding.

“Joe, you saw that race, he won by a half-length, not a neck.”

Joe, without hesitation, replied, “You’ll get a better price on him next time.”

Joe received every award imaginable in racing, from every organization. There was one period when he was winning one award after another. Joe, although honored, dealt with all the adulation with his typical dry sense of humor and humility. After hearing about his most recent award from the City of Louisville I congratulated him. Joe, with a tinge of embarrassment, said. “Thank you, Steve. I guess the only proper thing to do now is die.”

No one who knew Joe could name a greater ambassador for racing. He was always upbeat and positive, and concentrated on the beauty and poetry of the sport.

He had a love affair with the Derby, and would always say, “I never met a Derby I didn’t like.” But close behind was the Preakness and Belmont. Joe loved the stories behind the horses, and when he arrived at a trainer’s barn looking for a story or the latest news, the trainer would take Joe into his office and sit there with him for anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. That was the respect they had for him.

Joe lived a flamboyant life, sharing an apartment for 11 years with New York’s most eligible bachelor, New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath, known around The Big Apple as Broadway Joe. Let’s just say it was not easy, in fact darn near impossible, to get Joe to reveal any of the escapades that went on in that apartment.

Joe was close friends with Jets owner Sonny Werblin at the time, and it was Werblin who asked Joe to stay close to his star athlete and act as a stabling influence.

“Joe learned a lot about women from me over the years, but I learned so much more from him,” Namath wrote in a 2003 tribute to Hirsch in the Daily Racing Form. “He always tried to help point me in the right direction, to teach me about life. Because of him, I learned some things about respect, a little about discipline and a whole lot about people.”

Namath was only one of the many people who learned about life from Joe.

During the 1992 Breeders’ Cup at Gulfstream Park, my colleague Ed Fountaine, while covering the Sprint, had his laptop malfunction and lost his entire story. Visibly upset, he went to Hirsch for solace.

“Joe, I can’t believe it, I just lost my story and have to re-write the whole thing,” he said. Hirsch, seeing how distressed Ed was, put his arm around him and said, “Ed, you’ll be a better man for it.”

We were all better for knowing Joe Hirsch.

http://www.ntra.com/content.aspx?type=news&id=37233

Jay Privman's Obit for Hirsch..