Sid Hartman a Minnesota legend and Minnesota sports columnist, radio personality and an old-school home team booster who once ran the NBA’s Minneapolis Lakers and achieved nearly as much celebrity as some of the athletes he covered died at the age of 100 on October 18, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sid was born in Minneapolis on March 15, 1920. His Father, Jack Hechtman, was born in Russia and immigrated to the United States at age 16, changing his name to Hartman after he arrived. Sid Hartman’s mother, Celia Weinberg, immigrated to the United States from Latvia at age nine. Sid grew up in a Jewish family in North Minneapolis and by the age of nine was selling newspapers.
From a humble start selling newspapers on the street in 1928, he wrote about sports for the Star Tribune for the ensuing decades. At the age of 100 he was still writing three columns a week with his final one appearing on the day he died. According to a count by Star Tribune staffer Joel Rippel, Hartman produced 21,235 bylined stories in his career, from 1944 until the one that ran on C2 of Sunday’s Sports section. This, in addition to his various sports gigs on WCCO radio for 65 years and participating in a TV Sports panel for over 20 years.
Sid was one of those people that everyone in Minnesota knew by just his first name, kind of like Kirby, Harmon, and Bud. Sid obviously led an interesting life in which he worked to the very end in a job that he loved. No many of us get to spend a life doing something we love to do. Having said that, he was also very good at what he did and he had an unbelievable work ethic. No one worked harder than Sid to get a story and he loved to be the first to break a story and there are numerous stories floating around about what he would do to make sure that happened.
I did not know Sid personally and only met him once or twice so I am not going to regale you with “Sid” stories but there are plenty of other sources on the internet that can and I will try to post some of those links here. I want to post this article about Sid’s passing because I have read Sid’s columns in the newspaper and listened to Sid on WCCO radio for as long as I can remember and I enjoyed almost every one of them. It made no difference if I agreed with Sid or not, I would always read his next column and listen to his the next Sports Huddle show on WCCO radio. For year to me he was kind of the “real” insider, he knew everyone and everything. Then the internet came along and kind of changed that.
I also enjoyed the bantering back and forth for years between Sid and Don Riley a St. Paul sports writer who ran a column similar to Sid’s called “The Eye Opener” in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Riley ran his column from about 1943 to 1987. When Riley passed away in 2016 at the age of 92, Charley Walters, the longtime Pioneer Press sports columnist said that Riley “carried” the Pioneer Press for years. I think the same can be said for Sid Hartman and all he did for the Minneapolis Star Tribune for many decades.
No one supported and loved Minnesota sports more than Sid Hartman did. His love and support of of the University of Minnesota sports sometimes seemed like he was watching a totally different game than the rest of us but he supported his Minnesota Gophers sports teams through thick or thin. To the very end he would “get on” graduating Minnesota high school star athletes if they chose to continue their sports careers in a school other than the U of M. He also lobbied to bring back older athletes that had starred for Minnesota pro teams over the years and left for one reason or another for a final season or two back home in Minnesota colors.
I know I will miss reading Sid’s sports column and his radio and TV appearances but we were blessed with having Sid around for so may years but it is kind of sad that he passed away without seeing his Minnesota Vikings ever win a Super Bowl, the Twins not playing in a World Series since 1991 but probably most of all I would have liked to see him go to the Rose Bowl to watch his Minnesota Gophers represent the Big Ten in Pasadena.
I would like to pass on my condolences to Sid Hartman’s family, fans and of course to all his close and personal friends.
Sid Hartman, for over seven decades the voice of Minnesota sports, dead at 100
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Legendary Minnesota sports journalist Sid Hartman dies at age 100
Legendary Star Tribune columnist Sid Hartman dies at 100