Millions of newspaper and Saturday Evening Post readers came to consider Bozeman Bulger a great sportswriter whose work showed keen wit and insight into America's games. But Bulger found sportswriting a calling that was difficult to accept. Born to a distinguished southern family, Bulger at first was ashamed of sportswriting as a profession. Writing in a three-part 1928 series for The Saturday Evening Post titled "25 Years in Sports," Bulger admitted, "For years, I actually felt embarrassed at telling anybody I was a sporting editor. My aim, influenced perhaps by my father's friends, was what I then considered higher." Bulger's desire, perhaps inspired by the four years he spent as secretary to Congressman (later Senator) Oscar W. Underwood and his service as a clerk to the Alabama state legislature, was to be a political writer. His interest in and knowledge of sports, though, determined his career.

When he died in...