Updike

I cannot call myself an Updike fan, having read nothing of his other than a scattered few articles. What I can say is that he wrote beautifully about baseball; this is the article that has been getting a lot of play today. I particularly like this part:

"Baseball is a game of the long season, of relentless and gradual averaging-out. Irrelevance—since the reference point of most individual games is remote and statistical—always threatens its interest, which can be maintained not by the occasional heroics that sportswriters feed upon but by players who always care; who care, that is to say, about themselves and their art. Insofar as the clutch hitter is not a sportswriter's myth, he is a vulgarity, like a writer who writes only for money."

I also could not help but notice his mention of attending school "near Boston". I suppose it should count as little surprise to see this particular prevalent instance of Harvadian false modesty should be so old, but it was nevertheless quite amusing.