Roger Angell's 93, and still writing. Still writing well. If you haven't come to enjoy Angell's work yet, it's never too late. If you're looking for a shortcurt, Tom Verducci's new profile is just tremendous. But I want to take this chance to applaud an organization that's not always been at the top of my list of favorite organizations ...
A lifetime of exquisite work—much of it anthologized in books such as The Summer Game and Once More Around the Park—will be honored on July 26 at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., where Angell will receive the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, the highest honor given by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Angell is the 64th writer to win the annual award but the first never to have been a member of the BBWAA. (The New Yorker does not cover baseball as a beat.)
"He is the best baseball writer in terms of talent, insights, the turning of a phrase, everything," said Susan Slusser, the A’s beat writer at the San Francisco Chronicle who nominated Angell for the award. "I felt very strongly that there should not even be a writers’ exhibit in the Hall without Roger Angell."
Verducci's a tremendous reporter and writer, and I appreciate how he assiduously avoids suggesting that Angell will soon become a Hall of Famer. Because he won't. He'll be an honoree, which is a different thing. What's important is that Angell will be in Cooperstown, where he belongs.
