****
Roger
Angell
The New
Yorker 1 World Trade Center
New York, New York
U.S.A. 10007
Dear Roger:
I enjoy
exhibitions of grace. Whether on the field of play or on the printed page I
love to see grace in action.
Reading
your book This Old Man reminded me of
the grace of your writing. The stories flow easily. They are interesting. They
are unhurried.
It has
been some years since I read your work. I have next to me in a bookcase four of
your collections of essays on baseball. My recent reading has focused on crime
fiction, especially for my blog, but there was no specific reason I drifted
away from your writing. It has been good to return to reading your essays.
I have
long admired your writing about sport, especially baseball, while carrying out
your work as an editor of fiction at The
New Yorker.
My life
includes writing about sports while spending most of my time in other work. I
have written a sports column for the local weekly paper, The Melfort Journal, for 38 years while practising law full time. I
no longer write weekly columns but have continued to cover the Saskatchewan
Roughriders.
In
reading your stories about baseball in This
Old Man it is clear to me that you like to have conversations with ball
players, managers and coaches. I equally prefer to talk with athletes rather
than just asking a couple of questions and moving on to the next person. I am
finding it more difficult to have conversations. Players have come to expect no
more than a leading question or two from a reporter. Most are startled by the
concept of talking with a reporter.
Your
essays, such as your recounting of a conversation with Earl Weaver, in which he
profanely expressed disinterest in coaching high school or university baseball
after being a major league baseball manager illustrates the unexpected joys
that come from taking time to chat.
Occasionally
I have had the chance to cover a major league game. In 1991 I was in
Minneapolis and had a chance to visit with Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar
Tuskahoma McLish, then an adviser on pitching to the Milwaukee Brewers. We were
sitting in the dugout while he talked pitching. He told story after story.
Suddenly I saw Rick Dempsey strapping on his catching gear and smiling at us. I
expect Cal would have sat there in the dugout talking to me for the whole game
if I could have stayed.
While I recognize
a sports writer need not love sports I am glad that you love baseball. Most of
my columns have been about football as the Riders are Saskatchewan’s
professional team but it is baseball that I have loved all my life. My family
has been playing baseball in Saskatchewan for almost 100 years.
Until I
was an adult it was never baseball. I played hardball as a boy. I still like
using hardball better than baseball to describe the game.
It is the
grace in baseball that draws me to the game rather than the overpowering
fastball or the homerun. Watching a pitcher changing speeds, locations and
pitches is an artistry I look forward to every summer. Fielders smoothly
handling ground balls never lose its allure. I admire the easy swings of the
best hitters.
As I
approach 64 I still play some baseball in Saskatchewan’s Twilite Provincial
Tournaments. Many of the players are now a generation younger than me as you
can be a Twiliter upon reaching 35. While grace now eludes me on the field
guile can still get me, the slowest pitcher in the province, through some
innings on the mound.
(Finished in my next post.)
Oh, what an interesting letter, Bill! Not only does it pay tribute to Angell's writing, but it offers some insight into your experience and interests, too. I'm looking forward to reading what comes next!
ReplyDeleteMargot: Thanks for the comment and kind words. Angell is one of the best.
DeleteGreat letter Bill.
ReplyDeleteI loved Roger Angell's Five Seasons and The Summer Game. My first boss had worked in the USA for several years and was a baseball fan. While stuck in Pittsburgh Greyhound bus depot during the 1979 World Series watching on the parking meter type TVs I too became a fanatic. Those late innings comebacks are so dramatic.
Baseball is still a sport where a comparatively low salary team such as the Kansas City Royals can beat the multimillionaires of the Yankees or Dodgers.
Uriah: Thanks for the comment. Opening Day is less than a month away and then baseball every day for over 6 months! I was glad to hear of your personal connections with the game.
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