Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Red

Red Smith is the only Red I would like to see more of.

It's great to see there is a new decent book of Red Smith columns.  I learned of this via a book review by Tim Marchman, in Saturday's WSJ. The review gives us a re-creation of Red's era and technique through the book of collected columns, 'American Pastimes.'

Red Smith passed away on my birthday, in 1982, so he certainly didn't write any 'Sports of the Times' columns for any events after that. But he did write and publish nearly up to the day he died. I distinctly remember reading his last column of the subway on my way to work. It sounded a bit off, like several of his very last columns. You couldn't really locate the center of what he was writing about. It however, was still good writing, and he left us typing away.

A collection is by definition an aggregation of something, stamps, coins, paintings, cars, songs, writing; assembling a selection in one place. Thus, the items have been seen and absorbed before. A collection of column is no different, and Mr. Marchman warns that reading them can become monotonous. This of course means they shouldn't be read in lengthy doses. They are not a novel.

I always find the approach to a collection is to sample a few every now and then. When it comes to sports, it might work to select columns to read at the same time in the current calendar that they were written in. When trout season opens in Roscoe, NY, head for the fishing. Horse racing? Wait for the Kentucky Derby, or Belmont, or Saratoga to open.  That way, the weather and the month will match the story.

There is an introduction by Daniel Okrent, who of course beings legitimate journalistic credentials to the binder. Being slightly familiar with Mr. Okrent, I know he's certainly old enough to have read Red in the newspaper on the day the column was published, like I did.

In the introduction, Mr. Okrent offers some proof of Red's prowess when he writes about the Bobby Thomson home run that wins a playoff series for the New York Giants against the Brooklyn Dodgers, at home, in the Polo Grounds. One wishes Red were here to tell us about the fans in Boston last night when Chicago scores two goals in the last two minutes to win the Stanley Cup on Boston ice. Bombs on Marathon Day, and now this.
 
The reason there are no more Red Smiths, aside from the fact that sports people gab now instead of write, is that their schooling curriculum lacks literature, and particularly poetry. Red was all about poetry. Now we have medical reports and AMA treatises on all forms of cancer filling the broadcast booth. I turned ESPN's John Kruk and the game OFF the other night as they went on and on about testicular cancer (which we learn he was cured from), all because June is 'Prostate Month.'

Whatever happened to HIPPA regulations and protected health information? It's Dr. Oz all the time with these guys. Blab, blab, blab. Jackie Gleason's mother-in-law. There isn't enough of David Cone explaining where to stand on the pitching rubber when facing left and right handed batters, as Paul O'Neill expresses wounded feelings that, "Coney, you didn't tell me about this when we were playing together."

Ira Berkow's biography of Red is a front-to-back tribute to the man, and a tribute to writing. Who else would have been so justifiably incensed at an editor who changed his copy from "half a worm" to "worm" when he was describing the screwed up, disgusted face of a man who had just bit into an apple and found something other than an apple core. Mark Twain's lightning, and lightning bug.

Dying for Jack Dempsey was probably not good for him, but it did loosen up Red Smith's pre-written obituary of Dempsey that was in the New York Times obit morgue, awaiting release on Jack's demise. Thus, the world was treated to Red's writing, even after his own demise, when the Champ met his.
 
There is was, front page, below the fold, Dempsey has passed away at 87, and Red Smith, dead now himself for a year and a half, has written the obituary. This does happen, somewhat with the frequency of total solar eclipses. Marilyn Johnson, author of the obituary book, 'The Dead Beat,' calls obituaries of dead people written by people who have since died themselves "double down obits." Red would have loved hearing that.
 
Anyone who considers themselves a reader who paid attention to reading Red Smith and reading about him can easily remember a descriptive passage, or an O Henry twist to things.
 
The brochure for the New York town Saratoga Springs, the home of course for Saratoga race track, where Red and many others would spend all or most of August, uses a Smith quote about the prevailing turn-of-the- century atmosphere still alive in the town: "turn left on Union Avenue--and go back a hundred years." And still true.    
 
Red wrote a good deal about horse racing, and it is missed. There is a Red Smith Handicap race run every year. It's a decent race, a Grade II affair run on the turf at a challenging distance of a mile and three-eighths. There aren't many races named after sportswriters. That I can think of, there are only the Damon Runyon and the Mike Lee. 
 
Ira Berkow, who was mentored by Red and who eventually joined him at the NYT writing sports, gained the family access he needed and he produced a biography of Red, "Red, A Biography of Red Smith."
 
The book is the source of one of my favorite comparisons of two cities and one borough. And I use it whenever it seems to fit. Ira Berkow tells the story of how Red was making his way east from his beginnings in Wisconsin, and was aiming to be on a New York City paper. Considered the top.
 
Red is getting offers that are bringing him east, and geographically close to New York. But he turns down an offer to work at a Brooklyn paper. There is a major league team there named The Dodgers, and Brooklyn is just across the river from Manhattan, considered the place to be. Why turn it down? 
 
With the Brooklyn offer declined, Red accepts one from a Philadelphia paper. Philly of course has two major league teams, but is 90 miles away from New York. Why Philly? Red reasons that in his mind, "Philadelphia is closer to New York than Brooklyn." (And there a lot of people who would still agree.)
 
It's the nicest thing anyone ever said about Philadelphia.

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