Do you know what this writing style is called? E-mail me if you know. You must read several hundred words before you find out what the author is writing about. Rather than quickly defining a subject, this style does scene setting to the point you give up on reading. It seems most prevalent in sports writing but it is everywhere today.

Who, What, Where, When, and Why, plus H for How, are the essential questions to answer for the reader. This should be done quickly. Plenty of time to set a scene after the fundamentals are addressed. I consider this unnamed style lazy and disrespectful journalism, especially when writers like these are obviously capable of writing well and could easily be forthright. So, what’s it called? And do you have any examples?

Update: This style is definitely part of creative nonfiction (internal link).

My summation is the first line, the following paragraph the opening to the article.

The similarity of season’s end for two baseball teams:

IN THE CAVITY OF THE CATHEDRAL, HISTORY SOUNDS LIKE a freight train rumbling through a concrete tunnel. Roger Clemens recognized the rumble. Clemens, his retirement plans not yet amended, had spent the last seven innings of Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series in the home clubhouse at Yankee Stadium, nervously wondering if his career and the New York Yankees’ season were about to be extinguished by the Boston Red Sox. It was 12:16 a.m. on Oct. 17 when he heard the answer from above. . . .

Discovering a trove of rare baseball cards:

A little more than a century ago, a 10-year-old boy named Ollie lived in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a small boom town of about 15,000 at the edge of the Western frontier that was enjoying a growth spurt from its new stockyards and meat-packing plants. Ollie, an avid baseball fan, saved all the Buffalo nickels he could get his hands on. On most days after school, he spent them at his local drug store or five-and-dime on five-cent boxes of Cracker Jack. . . .