It has been 20 years since Rosie Ruiz burst onto the scene at the Boston Marathon. Tomorrow's 26-mile-385-yard race will crown two more champions, but Rosie's legend lives, a symbol synonymous with The Other Side of Sports.
I covered the 1980 Boston Marathon for The Times. When Bill Rodgers crossed the finish line first among the 5,364 starters that day for his third consecutive men's title, the story line was good enough. But when an unknown runner wearing the number ''W50'' staggered past the tape as the first woman among the 448 in the marathon, road racing suddenly became soap opera.
Even now, the name Rosie Ruiz is better known than that of some Olympic marathon champions. The Boston Globe ran a two-part, 4,781-word series on her four years ago. Bill Burt of The Lawrence (Mass.) Eagle Tribune, who has been researching an article on her for today's paper, polled 50 people in his area recently in an unscientific sampling. Forty-three knew who she was, Burt reported. He wondered whether any of those 50 polled would remember Jungle Jim Loscutoff of the Celtics.
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