This story popped up on Twitter on November 13 and yes, I went all the way back in the Twitter machine to find it. Not sure exactly who posted it first, but I promise you wont be disappointed.
“I beg the copy reader to let that little sentence get by. I plead with him. And if he doesn’t do it, I will kill him, bright and early Monday morning. Because that is the kind of game it was. There is no other way to say it.”
Sports Journalism 
Death of a Racehorse has “Best sentence ever written with nine commas in it” pegged down, but the award for more than 10 has to go to this. I love how real the article was, and I love that the writer was able to part with neutrality and give the game the voice it deserved in a moment that warranted it. Most reporters would shy away from that, but he embraced it and in doing so created a very moving story. I was chuckling and smiling along with him. You get a real picture of how crazy this game must have been despite his overall lack of description.
Thanks for posting this, Cody. Fantastic read!
I often wonder how much wiggle room there should be given from copy editors. There have been a few times where I’ve had a story where I would try to include the emotional, adrenaline-filled punch of a game or event I’ve just witnessed only to have a copy editor hack away at it for not it reading well or for not following AP style. I can’t imagine how much this story would suffer if the copy editors hadn’t obeyed Keeler’s wishes.
Random side note: Have you ever noticed how few copy editors there are that understand sports terminology? I can’t expect everyone to be a sports fan and maybe it’s just been the papers here in Columbia, but I feel like the editing process would be smoother and require fewer late night phone calls (I’ve had to explain what a pin in wrestling is over the phone more than once) if copy desks had more people who followed sports.
This was a fantastic read! I would never have been brave enough to write this. We tore apart the Dr V. article partly for the first person narrative. This is an example of when it is not only done right, but probably to the best of its ability.
I love that he used his first person account of the game and the atmosphere to show the reader what the game was like. He makes use of classic literary tools such as repetition, while at the same time completely going against the norm and not giving any statistics beyond the score.
The article is extremely frank with the reader and it works. I love the imagery of him pushing the cop to get a better view. I also appreciate him using the article itself to threaten the copy editor because Keeler probably didn’t see him that night. Just like in “Death of a Race Horse” sometimes it isn’t the stats of who won that matters, it is all the other stuff.
I especially like that he included the anecdote about the fans reaction to someone accidently getting hit in the head with a glassed bottle. Whether he included it because it was funny or intentionally wanted to show that while the fans were “raving and raging” when it came to the game, they were able to keep their heads when something happened that I could easily see getting violent.
Keeler referenced things readers would understand (the bulldog, the bull) to give them the feeling of how the game FELT. Thanks to Keeler I feel like I know exactly what it was like to be at a football game that happened almost 100 years ago.