Pulitzer Prize winning sportswriter Red Smith was once asked if it was hard writing a daily column and he famously responded "No it's easy. You just sit down at the typewriter, open a vein and bleed".

Red was a bit before my time, but I'm still old school. I like to READ about sports. I probably spend more time reading about sports than actually watching them, which fits my lifestyle. Not interested in video clips, podcasts, tweets and certainly not all of the Hot Take crapolla out there - I like to read.

I grew up reading Sports Illustrated. I remember having to consult a dictionary almost weekly for new words I saw in Frank Deford's column - the guy seriously improved my vocabulary. Another favorite was pro football writer Paul Zimmerman (a/k/a "Dr. Z"). SI always had (and still has) many good writers - Rick Telander, Rick Reilly, Austin Murphy, Tom Verducci and OU-grad and onetime Bengals beat reporter Peter King are others that stood/stand out.

Over the last 30 years with the growth of ESPN and the Web there's been a shift, and a lot of good SI writers got poached and started doing TV gigs. I'm reminded of that song "Video Killed the Radio Star".  Before his career ending illness, even Dr. Z started doing a football pick segment on SI.com with Brooklyn Decker (talk about Beauty and the Beast!). I do still read the magazine occasionally, but the trend of SI.com replacing written columns with video segments feels lazy (talking to you Andy Staples) and overall their site is getting bloated with fluff.  I've generally avoided espn.com because of my perception of their repackaging video content.  And RIP Grantland!

I'm looking for new outlets. So where do you go for well-written stories about sports without getting flooded with video, etc?  What else is out there that can be recommended for those who enjoy the written word first?

BTW - I think 11W has some good writers too (I'm not mentioning names)