W. C. Heinz
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
W. C. Heinz (January 11, 1915 – February 27, 2008); born Wilfred Charles Heinz, was an American sportswriter. He was born in Mount Vernon, New York.
Following his graduation from Middlebury College in 1937, Heinz joined the staff of the New York Sun. After serving as the newspaper's war correspondent in Europe during the second world war, Heinz returned to the United States and was named the paper's sports editor. He wrote a popular column called "The Sport Scene," which covered boxing, baseball, football and horse racing.
One of his pieces from around this time - Death of a Racehorse - is famous for its brevity (fewer than 1000 words) and its brilliance. The story centres on a promising young two-year-old horse racing for the first time, and concludes with the horse's death less than two hours later after it broke down in its first race.
Written in double quick time on a manual typewriter as the events unfolded, Death of a Racehorse is generally acknowledged as one of the greatest sports articles ever written.
Heinz became a freelance writer after the Sun ceased publishing in 1950. He was a regular contributor to magazines such as SPORT magazine, Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Esquire and Look.
He published his first book in 1958, a novel called The Professional, the story of a young fighter pursuing the middleweight boxing championship. Ernest Hemingway called the book "the only good novel I've ever read about a fighter, and an excellent novel in its own right."
Heinz wrote more than a dozen books on sports, including Run to Daylight with football coach Vince Lombardi. He edited The Fireside Book of Boxing, an anthology of boxing stories. He also wrote several books about his wartime experiences. Most notable was his collaboration with H. Richard Hornberger to write the novel M*A*S*H (under the pen name Richard Hooker),[citation needed] the book which inspired an Academy Award nominated film and long running television series.
Heinz was a five-time winner of the E. P. Dutton Award for best magazine story of the year. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2004.
Heinz died in Bennington, Vermont, at age 93.
