Roger Angell turned 93 last week. I bring this up because damn if the old man can’t still write. Here’s the end of Angell’s essay about Mariano’s farewell ceremony and (coincidentally) the practical end of the Yankees’ season:
The old master on the (relatively) young master
Elsa
The game ran down, then ran out, with the Yanks somehow failing to score anybody after putting runners on second and third base with no outs in the bottom of the eighth. The TV camera, sweeping the dugout rail one more time, caught a gallery of derelicts. The last batter, a twenty-two-year-old rookie catcher named J. R. Murphy, went down swinging. Shattered by injuries and with their bullpen worn to a frazzle, the Yankees have lost six of their last nine games. Sagging in the tatterdemalion struggle for that second American League Wild Card in the last week of the season, they will be caught by the heels in the next day or two and gobbled up by the statistical werewolf. Baseball, as Bart Giamatti told us, breaks your heart, but he was thinking of the back-then Red Sox.
Angell doesn’t write nearly as often or extensively about baseball as he used to, but I’m glad he still does what he does. Meanwhile, if you’ve never read his longer work, you’re in for a real treat. Perfect off-season reading.
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