Quote of the Day (John Updike, on Ted Williams’ Last At-Bat)

“The ball climbed on a diagonal line into the vast volume of air over center field. From my angle, behind third base, the ball seemed less an object in flight than the tip of a towering, motionless construct, like the Eiffel Tower or Tappan Zee Bridge. It was in the books while it was still in the sky."—American fiction writer and essayist John Updike (1932-2009), "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu," The New Yorker, Oct. 22, 1960

Sixty years ago today, Boston Red Sox left fielder Ted Williams accomplished something that most players desire desperately but can’t achieve: retire on top, with a home run in their last at-bat. John Updike’s account of this game is one of the classic baseball articles.

As seen in this passage, Updike endowed the last homer of the Hall of Famer’s 521-HR career with mythic majesty. He did the same thing in evoking how the 42-year-old Williams, who had quarreled with the press and even fans throughout his career, stayed true to form, refusing to tip his cap or come out of the dugout to acknowledge the wild cheering from the roughly 10,000 fans in Fenway Park after his eighth-inning blast.

Updike summed up the disdain of “The Splendid Splinter” simply, in perhaps the most quoted line of the piece: “Gods do not answer letters.”

Quote of the Day (Donald Hall, on Why Fans Love Baseball)

“For most baseball fans, maybe oldest is always best. We love baseball because it seizes and retains the past, like the snowy village inside a glass paperweight.”—U.S. poet-essayist Donald Hall (1928-2018), Fathers Playing Catch with Sons: Essays on Sport (Mostly Baseball) (1985)

Hall, the onetime poet laureate of the U.S. who died earlier this week, was a lifelong fan of the Boston Red Sox. Longtime readers of this blog know that I am not a fan of that team. 

Still, when it comes to a game that “seizes and retains the past,” few figures are so emblematic of baseball at its best than Bosox legend Ted Williams, pictured here. Moreover, in addition to being a hitter virtually without a peer, before or since, Williams was an American hero who flew 39 combat missions as a Marine fighter pilot in the Korean War. Between that conflict and World War II, he would sacrifice nearly four seasons at the height of his career to serve his country.

Williams and Hall are well worth celebrating and remembering this week.