Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
That's a wonderful book, which I've read several times.
  

    
Yes, "The Glory of Their Times" is a terrific book. It's hard to
convince people to read it, but no one I've loaned it to hasn't loved
it. I'm also a huge Roger Angell fan - he's one of my favorite writers
of any kind (and still going, though he's so old he saw Babe Ruth play
live).

And people don't tend to think of Bill James as a stylist, but he's a
very good writer and his Baseball Abstract really changed the way I
thought about the game when I read it in college, and indeed the way I
think about conventional wisdom in general.
  

    
I'll put in a plug for, not a book, but a classic long article, Al Stump's
story of the last days of Ty Cobb, which appeared in the pulpy True
magazine.  You know the story?  Stump, ignoring the counsel of everyone who
knew Cobb, signed on to ghost his autobiography.  The result was so
whitewashed that Stump suffered pangs of conscience about it ever after, and
once Cobb died, he wrote this amazing saga (he basically moved in with the
ailing but ever-belligerent Cobb, he virtually watched him die) as penance.
I have only seen it in the anthology called "The Art of Fact," which I use
to teach feature writing at Columbia, but I bet it's anthologized in other
places as well.

I just learned from a student a week ago that in the movie "Cobb," based on
Stump's book and article, Stump had a walk-on role.
  

    
The Stump article is amazing, just a wonderful piece of proto-New
Journalism work. It's as significant, I think, as Gay Talese's "Frank
Sinatra Has a Cold" and Tom Wolfe's "Kandy Kolored Tangerine Flake
Streamlined Baby."  

I'm also a devotee of Roger Angell's writing on any subject but
especially baseball. Sadly, he seems to have given the baseball beat at
The New Yorker to Ben McGrath, who is a very fine reporter but, well,
he isn't quite Roger Angell. (Even more sadly, and I don't know how
widely discussed this is, but Roger Angell's daughter Callie recently
committed suicide. Here's the NY Times obit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/arts/artsspecial/11angell.html?ref=obituarie
s
)

Recently, I saw a quote from someone, and I wish I could remember
which author said this, to the effect that more good baseball books are
published in a single season than have ever been published about other
sports.

If you agree, why do you think this is so?
  

    
I read Prophets of the Sandlots, by Mark Winegardner, a coupld of years ago,
and really liked it. It's about major league scouting.

I think there are way more books about golf than about any other sport,
because so many people play it and it's an easy gift idea. Oh wait you said
=good= books.
  

    
Steve, I used that quote about good baseball books in my book,
actually, but so far as I know it's originally from Washington Post
columnist Thomas Boswell: "More good baseball books appear in a single
year than have been written about football in the past 50 years."

That Stump article is completely fantastic, yes. I came across it
originally in the excellent "Baseball: A Literary Anthology," which
also has Talese's DiMaggio article, Bill Veeck's account of little
person Eddie Gaedel's MLB at-bat, Updike's fantastic piece on Ted
Williams' last game, and all kinds of great stuff.
  

    
Thank you for the clarification on the Boswell quote. I think he's
right.

As a writer yourself, Emma, and also as a sporstwriter who has covered
other sports, what do you think it is about baseball that lends itself
to literature, or at least excellent writing, seemingly more so, or at
least more frequently, than other games?
  

    
another vote here for Sugar, which I watched recently and really loved.
  

    
Just saw this forum was happening and wanted to say that I read Emma's
book last week and loved it, especially after reading the incredible
Harper's collection "Rules of the Game" and writing a piece in Boulder
Weekly (http://tinyurl.com/2344vws) about how much we need more sports
writing today that's actually *writing*. Even the new book "Baseball
Codes"...it's interesting, but it's just about baseball. I loved how
Emma delineated her passion in such culturally rich, self-deprecating
and diverse ways.

My favorite baseball book is definitely "Clemente: The Passion and
Grace of Baseball's Last Hero," and not just because I grew up in
Pittsburgh. Clemente was a fascinating person.

Anyway - Emma, as someone who (like me) has friends who just don't
understand your sports obsession, how would you suggest getting my
daughter (who is 5 months old) into sports eventually even if my
partner (who grew up in New Mexico and has *never* played or watched
sports) is against it?
  

    
Roberto Clemente's story and its tragic ending offer a good reason why
baseball movies are generally poor. The real thing is already beyond
amazing; what can Hollywood do to improve on it? 

Yet this isn't the case with literature, interestingly. "The Boys of
Summer" by Roger Kahn, about the Brooklyn Dodgers (especially the '55
Dodgers who finally brought a championship to Brooklyn), is another
great classic. I think it'd fail as a film, though. Partly that's
because a great writer can draw things out of taciturn and/or
under-educated and/or foreign-born ballplayers who speak with a heavy
accent that a camera just can't seem to. 

Some of my favorite baseball journalism was the series of essays Roger
Angell wrote back in the 1970s dissecting a particular baseball skill
-- hitting, catching, pitching, etc. He talked to players and coaches
who were experts, and their sometimes-less-than-articulate analysis
nevertheless revealed great wisdom and intelligence. They all really
thought hard about what they do. 
  

    
Steve, I definitely don't think it's possible for Hollywood to
"improve on" Clemente's story, but it's a story most of the world -
and, I'd say, even most the sports world - isn't familiar with and
should be. Imagining the sports superstars of today dying in a plane
crash while racing to get supplies to a post-earthquake disaster area
is seriously hard to do. As is imagining a superstar staying with the
Pirates for an entire career. :-)
  

    
We've reached the late hours in this particular inkwell.vue interview,
but there's no reason why the ballgame can't go into extra innings.
Emma, I hope you stick around for a while, as I'm sure there are plenty
more questions from the grandstand. No true fan leaves before the last
pitch, you know.

Thank you, everyone, for participating in a very enjoyable discussion
about the National Pastime -- the way girls and women see it. 
  

    
Thanks everyone, and thanks, Steve, for all the good questions!

Adam, to answer your very good question - although I don't have kids,
I imagine the best way to get one of either gender interested in the
game is simply to watch a lot with them. I didn't care about baseball
the first time my dad had it on the TV... or the second, or the 20th,
really. But eventually I came across players and storylines that hooked
me - and then visiting the old Yankee Stadium really sealed the deal.
(Of course, unless you have a time machine, that last step could be
tricky. But maybe a spring training game in a few years would be a good
start? Or, lots of minor league teams have not only very affordable
tickets, but lots of attractions, activities and mascots geared at
kids). 

A few weeks ago another baseball writer asked me which baseball
players I thought were really heroes - not just in the context of the
game (e.g. Bucky Dent, Aaron Boone) but "in real life," actual heroes.
Jackie Robinson is the obvious answer, and other trailblazing black
players - Satchel Paige, Buck O'Neil, Lary Doby and more. But beyond
that I was stumped for a second - Lou Gehrig, maybe? But then I
remembered: Clemente, of course. 

Thanks again, everyone! I appreciate all the questions and feedback.
  

    
Hmm...I'm trying to think of a genuine hero, on and off the field, in
today's MLB.
  

    
Everybody has some charity they have been made to do... and no doubt
there are contract clauses that forbid dangerous humanitarian missions.
  

    
Those two trends perhaps make it harder to know who has a heroic
spirit, changing things from two directions. 
  

    
It depends on how one defines "hero," of course. Lots of today's MLB
players donate substantial amounts of time and money to charity, and
quite a few have set up their own foundations to support one cause or
another. The former Red Sox Mo Vaughn has become a very respected
developer of housing for the indigent and poor in Boston and elsewhere.

Is this heroic? Not by my definition of "hero," but I greatly respect
these efforts by the players who make them, most especially the players
-- there are quite a few -- who do it quietly and without fanfare. 

A recent issue of Sports Illustrated carried a feature story about
"the most courageous man in sports," as the subtitle had it. To be
honest, I forget his name -- Something Thomas, I think -- but as a top
notch rugby player for Wales, he is the only out gay man anywhere
professionally playing a major sport. That took guts to become so, and
probably not a little heroism too. 
  

    
I want to thank Emma, Steve and everyone who contributed to this
discussion. It has been a pleasure. Inkwell has now moved on to a new
author conversation, but this topic will stay here indefinitely so
please continue to post if you wish.
  

    
By the way, does anyone else find it odd that the new book about Hank
Aaron is called "The Last Hero" when a major book about Robert Clemente
a few years ago was titled "Baseball's Last Hero"? I wonder if there
will be a book on Jackie Robinson called "The Last Last Last Hero of
Baseball"
  

    
I don't find it odd, really, I find it revealing of our culture's
apparently addictive need to mythologize athletes into heroes. 

Coming in 2015: "Jamie Moyer: The Last American Hero."

Coming in 2020: "Ryan Howard: The Last American Hero."

Coming in 2025: "Bo Obama: The Last American Hero."