by Roger Angell
But what was it like there today, really? With no ushers and no vendors? With no instant replay visible in the overhead fan TV sets? Were the sounds of conversation between players in the dugouts audible to a pigeon pausing somewhere along the silent, empty rows of seats in Section 280?
None of this matters much, to be sure, except as an unexpected reminder of the massive and relentless add-ons and distractions of modern-day ball. The Kiss Camera, the racing mascots, the T-shirt cannonades, the God Bless, the deafening rock, the home-team anthem, the infield sweepers’ dance, the well-plaqued Hall of Heroes, the retired numbers, the gymnasium-sized souvenir shops, the Texas steak restaurant in right (with its roped-off waiting areas thoughtfully supplied with overhead screens), the pizzeria in left, the bleacher kiddie pool, and so on. Fans love this and eat it up, but today’s silent anomaly in Baltimore is a mirror reminder that what’s been taken away from the pastime isn’t the crowd but the game: what we came for and what we partake of now in passing fractions, often seen in a held-up smartphone.
Some among us (I am one of them) can recall a time when the baseball and the players were the lone attractions, barring a few outfield signboards. Nothing more, not even an organist. You watched and waited in semi-silence, ate a hot dog, drank a Moxie, watched some more, yelled when something happened, kept score, saw the shadows lengthen, then trooped home elated or disconsolate. It was a public event, modestly presented, and private in recollection. If the game was a big one, with enormous Sunday crowds and endless roaring, it was thrilling to have been there, but in some fashion you’d also been there alone, nobody else in sight.
Post, April, 2015
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My steady feelings of thanks, which start with my children and my family and include a splendid range of cherished friends, are not reducible to a list. Elsewhere on these pages I name the five extraordinary editors of The New Yorker it’s been my privilege to write for and work for, but I must make special mention of Tina Brown, who was so insistent that I write more about myself, and David Remnick, whose patience and generosity toward me have been exceeded only by his love and support in hard times. I send opinionated love to all my past colleagues in the New Yorker’s Fiction Department and to their brilliant incumbent successors Deborah Treisman, Cressida Leyshon, and Willing Davidson. I am grateful beyond measure to Ann Goldstein, Mark Singer, Pamela McCarthy, Dorothy Wickenden, Peter Canby, Ben McGrath, Betsy Morais, David Denby, Patrick Keogh, Rhonda Sherman, Bruce Diones, Eliza Grace Martin, Hannah Jocelyn, Lauren Porcaro, Amanda Urban, Bill Thomas, Rose Courteau, Angela Patrinos, Darlene Allen, and Ms. Moorman’s Cathedral School fifth-grade haiku writers.
Last and first thoughts, within this book and on every day, are for my dear wife Peggy.
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
Courtesy of Roger Angell: 2.1, 17.1, 17.2, 39.1
Tom Bachtell, courtesy of The New Yorker: 3.1
Courtesy of White Literary, LLC: 5.1
Courtesy of Betsy Daugherty: 10.1
George Shanks: 11.1
George Price, courtesy of The New Yorker: 11.2
Frank Modell, courtesy of The New Yorker: 11.3
William Steig, courtesy of The New Yorker: 11.4, 30.1, 30.2, 30.3, 30.4
Arnie Levin, courtesy of The New Yorker: 11.5, 17.3, 17.4
Adrian Tomine: 19.1
Nicholas Parker, courtesy of The New Yorker: 28.1
Ward Schumaker, courtesy of The New Yorker: 28.2
David Hughes, courtesy of The New Yorker: 29.1, 29.2, 29.3, 29.4, 29.5
© The Saul Steinberg Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York: 32.1 Untitled, 1975. Ink, pencil, colored pencil, and collage on paper, 14½ x 11½ in. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Originally published in The New Yorker, May 10, 1976.
Courtesy of Judy Tomkins: 37.1
Francis Barraud: 38.1
Courtesy of David Updike: 42.1
© The Saul Steinberg Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York: 43.1 Untitled, 1980. Black pencil on paper, 12⅞ x 11 in. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Originally published in The New Yorker, November 24, 1980.
© Brigitte Lacombe 2014: 44.1
Courtesy of Chris Protopapas: 45.1
The following pieces originally appeared, some in different form, in The New Yorker:
“Ahoy, the Series!” as “Ahoy, the World Series!,” “Andy’s Haikus,” “Anna Hamburger,” “The Best,” “Bob Feller” as “Rapidly,” “Bob Sheppard” as “Postscript: Bob Sheppard,” “Boggler,” “Class Report,” “Congratulations! It’s a Baby,” “Chinny-Chin-Chin,” “Crying Man,” “Barry and the Deathly Numbers” as “Deathly Numbers,” “Derek’s MMM,” “Dial Again,” “Disarmed,” “Duke Snider” as “And the Duke,” “Earl Weaver,” as “Postscript: Earl Weaver, 1930–2013,” “Greetings, Friends!” “Here Comes the Sun,” “Hersey and History,” “Horse Talk,” “Huckleberry Finn” as “Huck Continued,” “Jackie Robinson Again,” “Joe Carroll” as “Makeup Man!” “La Forza Del Alpo,” “Life and Letters,” “Lineup” as “Olden Opener,” “The Little Flower” as “Ink,” “Lo Love, High Romance,” “Man of Letters,” “Me and Prew,” “The Minstrel Steig,” “Moose Tales,” “More Time with the Britannica,” “Mo Town,” “Nothing Doing,” “Off We Go” as “Catch-Up,” “Over the Wall,” “Papiness,” “The Crime of Our Life,” “Two Emmas,” “The Silence of the Fans,” “S’long, Jeet,” “Sox Top Sloppy Cards,” “Storyville,” “This Old Man,” “Three at a Time,” “West Side Story,” “The Wrong Dog,” “Yaz’s Triple Crown,” and “Zim.” Reprinted by courtesy of The New Yorker.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Roger Angell is a senior fiction editor and a longtime contributor with The New Yorker. His writings for the magazine include reporting, commentary, fiction, humor, film and book reviews, and, for many years, the magazine’s Christmas verse, “Greetings, Friends!” His ten books include such baseball writings as The Summer Game, Five Seasons, and Game Time, and, most recently, a memoir, Let Me Finish. His awards include a George Polk Award for Commentary; the Michael Braude Award for Light Verse, presented by the American Academy of Arts and Letters; a PEN/ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sports Writing; and the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, the highest honor given to writers by the Baseball Hall of Fame. His New Yorker piece “This Old Man” won the 2014 prize for Essays and Criticism awarded by the American Society of Magazine Editors. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Mr. Angell lives in New York and Maine.
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