LAKE BUENA VISTA, Flo. - Monday, the Hall of Fame announced that Marvin Miller, who’d so nearly been elected three years ago when he was 93 years old, had missed election again. Miller’s been dead for almost exactly one year. Murray Chass recently detailed Miller’s wishes, and those of his family, and those wishes might well have cost him this time.
At long last, Roger Angell’s heading to Cooperstown
Tuesday, though, nonagenarians everywhere should be inspired by this news:
Congratulations to Roger Angell of the New Yorker, the recipient of the @BaseballHall of Fame's J.G. Taylor Spink Award.
— MLB Public Relations (@MLB_PR) December 10, 2013
Yes, you might reasonably say, “Hey, what in the hell took them so long? Angell’s been writing brilliantly about baseball since the 1960s.” But let’s remember something: In the half-century history of the award, this is essentially the first time it’s gone to someone who wasn’t a newspaper writer. Because, you know, the winners have always been chosen by newspaper writers. So kudos to the BBWAA for this choice, however terribly overdue it might have been. We can only hope that Angell’s fettle next summer is fine enough for him to visit the shores of Lake Otsego and smell the rarefied of Baseball’s Valhalla.
Meanwhile, just in case you don’t know what all the fuss is about -- don’t know why David Remnick describes Angell as “the best writer ever known to baseball, the best by far” -- here’s a perfect place to start.
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