Monday, February 04, 2008

Tough Week for Sportswriters


Super Bowl week is generally pretty fun for sportswriters. The weather is usually pretty warm, there's almost no real news to report, and the whole scene is like one big party with a who's who of the football world. This year, however, the trip to the big game turned into a trip to the hospital for three prominent football writers.

It stared on Monday with Michael Wilbon, longtime columnist for the Washington Post and co-host of ESPN's daily sports-talk show, Pardon the Interruption. After complaining of chest pains, his wife drove him to a Scottsdale hospital, where he learned that he had suffered a mild heart attack.

After participating in the vote for the 2008 Hall of Fame class Saturday morning, ESPN's Len Pasquarelli checked into a local hospital and learned that he had five blocked arteries. He underwent quintuple bypass surgery on Super Bowl Sunday.

That same morning, Sports Illustrated's Peter King was in the emergency department at Good Samaritan Medical Center receiving treatment for what he described as "a nasty fever and bug."

Get well guys.