For decades Peter Finney was the must-read sportswriter in New Orleans. His career covered the years from 1945 to 2013, first at the States-Item, followed by 33 years at the Times-Picayune. Finney was not only a fixture covering the local scene, where he was the 17-time winner of the Louisiana Sportswriter of the Year Award, but a regular and friendly presence at many of the major sports events around the country. In this collection, his son, Peter Finney Jr., a former New York sportswriter, selects the best of his dad’s stories from the 15,000 he wrote on everything from the Olympics and golf to “backyard” stories such as the Saints’ long-in-coming Super Bowl win and the trials of tribulations of former Saints quarterback Archie Manning.
Here’s an excerpt from The Best of Peter Finney:
“We’ll never know just what kind of quarterback Archie Manning would have been with – how many times have you heard it – ‘a good team.’
“It makes you think of the classic movie scene, the one in ‘On the Waterfront,’ when Marlon Brando, a stumblebum of a fighter, is riding in a car with his brother, bemoaning his plight in Palookaville, a career gone by the boards.
“ ‘I coulda been a contenda,’ Brando said.
“The what-might-have-been tugged at the heartstrings, just as Manning’s farewell did out on David Drive, a red-eyed, redheaded quarterback saying goodbye to the only pro team he’d ever known.
“All along, Archie has been all class, and the personality trait of a thoroughbred was never more obvious than it was in this requiem for his career as a Saint.”
