Dick Young certainly spent much of his career embodying everything that was evil and loathsome about the old-time sportswriter. He often carried water for awful owners, ran Tom Seaver out of town, denounced Pele, and generally acted like an idiot (something we can all relate to).
If you've never read Warren Leight and Charlie Rubin's satirical Village Voice columns on Dick Young in Hell, well then, ya gotta.
https://thestacks.deadspin.com/heaven-aint-what-it-used-to-be-dick-young-goes-to-hel-883432847
They are absolutely hilarious, a key part of the neglected Golden Age of Funny Sportswriting, along with those guys whose names I forget who turned Phil Rizzuto's broadcasts into poetry, Tom Peyer and whatshisface:
https://www.syracuse.com/newstracker/2007/08/the_poetry_of_phil_rizzuto.html
But ol' Dick, bless his heart, got it right occasionally, as when he saw through Walter O'Malley for the fraud he was, and called out the Baseball Writers of America for not voting Willie Mays into the Hall unanimously:
"If Jesus Christ were to show up with His old baseball glove, some guys wouldn't vote for Him. He dropped the cross three times, didn't He?"
Mays, inexplicably, got only 94 percent of the vote. O-kay.
My Uncle Bruce took me to see Willie Mays play on August 4, 1967, against the Mets, shortly before we moved into the New England Captivity. Seaver was pitching and he didn't have a great night: 0-5, with 2 strikeouts, but everyone's eyes followed him everywhere he went.
My uncle—an old New York Baseball Giants fan—has been gone for over three years now, and I miss him more everyday. Toward the very end, at age 85, his mind failing, one of the things my uncle kept saying was how glad he was that he got to see Willie Mays play.
Me, too—thanks to him. And I got to see Derek Jeter play for 20 years, which was pretty good, too.
For all my complaints it's not a bad pastime, this baseball.
“And if Ted Williams could play three seasons in Triple A, I could make it through a couple of months with the head of a lizard.”
ReplyDeleteI can’t stop laughing..
Thanks for the nod, Hoss, and for the very funny Deadspin link.
ReplyDeleteOh, thanks for BOTH the Deadspin links. God, I miss Deadspin.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Hoss!
ReplyDelete"When Bill Buckner dies, word is they're going to toss him the key to the Pearly Gates. All he has to do is catch it, and he's in. Tell me that's not sick. "
ReplyDeleteJust great.
Doug K.
Hoss, My friend, Tommy Shirts, who reads this blog religiously, told me to thank you, as well for this piece.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bitty—and please thank M. Shirts.
ReplyDeleteI remember being in Philadelphia at the new Veteran Stadium on May 21, 1972 and watching Willie Mays hit a Steve Carlton fastball to straight-away center, bouncing it off the score board. Even my dopey 11-year-old self knew that was something very special. If Mays Hall vote wasn't unanimous Derek is very good company.
ReplyDelete
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