Gods do not answer letters.

In 1960, John Updike wrote an article about the retirement of Ted Williams that should be one of the standards to which all sports writing is compared. A few clippings:

"First, there was the by now legendary epoch when the young bridegroom came out of the West, announced "All I want out of life is that when I walk down the street folks will say 'There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived.' " The dowagers of local journalism attempted to give elementary deportment lessons to this child who spake as a god, and to their horror were themselves rebuked. Thus began the long exchange of backbiting, bat-flipping, booing, and spitting that has distinguished Williams' public relations."

and later

Whatever residue of truth remains of the Finnegan charge those of us who love Williams must transmute as best we can, in our own personal crucibles. My personal memories of Williams begin when I was a boy in Pennsylvania, with two last-place teams in Philadelphia to keep me company. For me, "W'ms, lf" was a figment of the box scores who always seemed to be going 3-for-5. He radiated, from afar, the hard blue glow of high purpose

It's not a short article, but if you consider yourself a sox fan or a baseball fan and you've never read it... Well... Just read it.

Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu

by John Updike
1960, for the New Yorker

A weak excuse for a sports manifesto

Why did I want to write a sports blog? I have more to say about sports than I do about most subjects. While I realize that the world is falling apart on all sides of us, I really can't talk, read, or watch anything more about that sort of thing. I mean, while I realize that oil companies are the antichrist and George Bush is every day cementing his lead pipe lock status for the worst president in the history of the United States... I just can't write about that sort of shit everyday. I'm still going to be writing the questions blog, but most likely that will be weekly. If I ever see a movie or read a book worth recommending again, I'll post those over there. Unless of course it's a sports book or movie, which will just cause all sorts of problems.

So I'm going to try and follow some basic rules here.

One. I'm going to try to avoid the sour faced sports perspective. Look, sports are supposed to be fun. Reading about why this person or that sucks is just not fun. If I get too negative, the gf will sick the killer attack animal on me. You doubt me? As we were taking the above picture I was making fun of coco crisps weak-ass throwing arm.

Two. I'm not just going to write about my teams, as that would be boring as fuck. Look, there are three teams I am a fan of. The Yankees, the Celtics, and whatever Fantasy league team I am currently mis-managing. I will try to stay objective. (For sox fans, this may be an unfamiliar concept, but it involves using facts instead of feelings)

Three. I will ignore all salaries. Seriously? I just don't fucking care how much money the backup catcher for the Twins makes. It's more than me. He's probably better at what he does than I am, I can live with that. The day that talking about sports started including contract details, salary negotiations and guaranteed bonuses was not a good day in the world of sports.

That's pretty much it. To sum it up, I'm going to try to avoid all the not-fun aspects of sports. That's pretty much it.