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Ring Lardner: An American Original
This week gives Ring Lardner who is being honored with a volume by the Library of America (edited by Ian Frazier). We'll run one of his stories from the collection tomorrow, and later today we've got a treat from his eldest son, John. Meanwhile, check out three of his most famous stories at the LOA'...
Great Players Who Never Had A Great Moment
There have been great players who never had a great moment; men who went on year after year, running up formidable statistics, but were no more fearsome than anybody else in the few, crucial moments of their careers. They popped up or flied out in key at-bats, or did not even fail that spectacularly...
The Elements of Style: "I Never Liked Fighting"
My father wasn’t a boxing fan but talked about Sugar Ray Robinson with admiration. Robinson was a brutal and efficient fighter, I was told, “pound-for-pound, the greatest boxer of all-time."...
Althea Gibson and Robert Lipsyte's Forgotten Bookmark
My friend Michael Popek owns a used bookstore and runs a site called Forgotten Bookmarks, devoted to the things he finds in old books. The site did so well Michael published a book of the same name. (Check out this Q&A we did in 2011 and this profile of Michael by Shannon Firth.)...
The Magic Word
The greatest word in baseball is "horseshit." This isn't a matter of opinion, it's a scientific fact. From Kevin Kerrane’s fine book, Dollar Sign on the Muscle:...
The Crowd Sounds Happy
Baseball lends itself to radio, this much we know. Hasn't changed much through the years either. The game still sounds good on the radio. But let's go back some, and hear about Nicholas Dawidoff's experiences listening to Ned Martin call Red Sox games in the 1970s:...
Get Your Ya Ya's Out
From his classic book, The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones, dig Stanley Booth on the band's gig at MSG in 1969:...
You Don't See A Fella Sliding Into Second Base And Breaking His Cigar
Before he became famous a broadcaster, Myron Cope was a terrific writer. Do yourself a favor and track down his compilation Broken Cigars. The title was taken from a conversation Cope once had over beers with Alex Hawkins, a journeyman football player who complained that baseball was losing its popu...
Don't Call Me Irwin
My father had a bookshelf of mystery and crime paperbacks when I was growing up. The only ones I ever read were Gregory Mcdonald's Fletch series which suited my teenage wise ass self just fine....
Mr. Big Stuff (Who Do You Think You Are?)
Another good Reggie story. This one if from Foul Ball: Five Years in the American League, by Alison Gordon, who covered the Blue Jays from 1979-83. Gordon describes herself as “a socialist, feminist, hedonist with roots in the sixties, a woman who had marched against the bomb, done drugs, and never,...
This One Goes To Eleven
Slide on over to the Hollywood reporter and check out this excerpt from Michael Walker's new book What You Want Is in the Limo:...
S'Long Holly
Carol Reed's movie The Third Man, based on one of Graham Greene's "entertainments," is a favorite....
“Source? <em>I'm</em> Your Fucking Source!” Dick Young, As He Really Was
To round off our Dick Young tribute/roast, please enjoy this excerpt from Keepers of the Game: When the Baseball Beat Was The Best Job On The Paper, a new oral history compiled by Dennis D’Agostino in the tradition of Jerome Holtzman’s No Cheering in the Press Box. Dennis was good enough to let me ...
And It Happens Every Day
Over at Narrative, dig David Thomson on The Long Goodbye—...
The Talented Mr. Tynan
"Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding."...
Sunday Sermon: Al Green, Greg Maddux, And The Power Of Softness
Greg Maddux used to talk about throwing softer rather than harder when he was in a tight spot. Back in August of 2004, Mark Prior told Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci:...
A Gentle Giant
Jack McCallum is a terrific reporter and writer. He was with SI for many years and still does the occasional piece for them. He is also an author and runs a blog. The blog has lots of fun posts. This one, a tribute to the late Robert Creamer, is tender:...
Pump, Pump, Pump, Pump It Up
Paul Solotaroff had a terrific piece on the original Gold’s Gym and the rise of bodybuilding in the February, 2012 issue of Men’s Journal:...
Darkness On The Edge Of Town: A Good Man Is Hard To Find
Here's Flannery O'Connor reading her story "A Good Man is Hard to Find."...
“I Think That ‘E’ Made The Whole Fucking Difference”
From Hollywood: Stars and starlets, tycoons and flesh-peddlers, moviemakers and moneymakers, frauds and geniuses, hopefuls and has-been, great lover and sex symbols, Garson Kanin's appealing, gossipy memoir:...