Blackie Sherrod has died at 96 years of age

Blackie Sherrod, longtime sportswriter for the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Times Herald, has died at the age of 96, per the DMN.

Very sad news there...Sherrod was a fixture on the sports scene from basically the time I can remember following sports in the D/FW area.  His Sunday notes column was a fixture at the DMN for years, leading off every week with the line, "Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to"...followed by the name of a figure, usually sports-related, but not always, who had fallen off the map.

Sherrod was a throwback to another era, someone who could be amusing and entertaining, and who didn't do the "hot takes" or have opinions seemingly just for the sake of having opinions.

While I could be mistaken, I think it was Sherrod who related one of my favorite stories about the newspaper business.  As I remember it, he was relating how, as a young writer, he asked one of the veteran writers why, in the editorials, the author always used "we" rather than "I."  The older writer explained, "Its in case one of the readers gets mad about it, and thinks about coming down to the newspaper offices to confront the writer.  We want him to think he's going to have to fight a bunch of us, rather than just one."