RIP David Halberstam

Well said.

 

JG-Mac
In honor of your great catch on "epithet," I humbly return the favor:

 

I, and the other creatures of the northern fjords, our eyes as blue and cold as ice, thank you.

 

I loved The Teammates. ESPN did a show about it, with interviews. I only caught the last 10 minutes or so and was very moved.

I am still so damn sad about this. I'm very glad to hear about his Korean War book. I've been looking for a definitive book about it and I look forward to this one.

Jonathan Yardley, who was friends with David Halberstam for 45 years, did a chat on washingtonpost.com about him today:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/04/24/DI2007042400682.html

 

Here's a toast to what David Halberstam gave to this world.

In "Summer of 49", he recounted how he, as a kid, would compulsively bounce a rubber ball against the wall and catch it as he was listening to a game, convinced that if he missed, he would jinx his team.

That's about as much as he and I had in common.

What a great talent.

 

A friend says the area where the crash happened is notoriously dangerous.

When I saw the news last night, I was like, "Damn, he seemed like one of those guys who NEVER would die."

RIP.

 

Wow - One of my favorite writers. Loved Best and the Brightest and Breaks of the Game. Summer of 49 also a fav.

Sometimes life is full of irony and mystery . Halberstam wearing a seatbelt in one of safest cars around - a camry dies and Jon Corzine going 90 MPH with no seat belt in unsafe truck makes it through.

 

http://www.sunherald.com/228/story/38384.html

Good column on Halberstam.

 

I was visiting family over the extended weekend and saw the headline while checking email at my mom's house yesterday. The thought that someone of Halberstam's stature and reputation can have his life cut short by, of all things, a car accident, is mindblowing and devastating.
Eight years ago this spring, I was working my first job out of college, and went to the library to check out a book to read for lunch. I picked up "Summer of '49" because every baseball fan loved it. From the first page to the last page, I was wrapped up in the battles between the Sawx and the Yankees, DiMaggio and Teddy Ballgame, and the era leading into the 50's.

Several weeks later, I picked up "October 1964". From this day I checked the book out from the library, "October" is my favorite sports book of all time for numerous reasons: the end of the Yankees Dynasty at that time, Bob Gibson, the Cardinals sending Lou Broglio to the Cubs for Lou Brock, and the dynamics of the civil rights period when the Cardinals had Brock, Gibby, Bill White and the Yankees had only one African-American on the team. I learned more about that "crazy god-damned" Mike Shannon, Boyer, and how the Redbirds took down the Yankees in the World Series.

What is so amazing is that I haven't read those books since 1998 when I first read them. They were so good to read, I felt it would be bad to re-read them. I came to appreciate how powerful the written word can be to so many through Halberstam.

But a car accident, of all things, ended a life that all of us didn't expect to end so soon. So quickly.

God speed Mr. Halberstam. The big guy upstairs would love to hear you tell another story again.

 

AP story just moved interviewing the driver of the car Halberstam was in.

 

Here's the story (I was cleaning it up as Omar posted).

 

Tuesday's Globe and Mail:

From a speech by David Halberstam to the Columbia School of Journalism in 2005:

"One of the things I learned, the easiest of lessons, was that the better you do your job, often going against conventional mores, the less popular you are likely to be. So, if you seek popularity, this is probably not the profession for you. … There are a few things I would like to pass on to you as I come near to the end of my career. One: It's not about fame. By and large, the more famous you are, the less of a journalist you are. Besides, fame does not last. At its best, it is about being paid to learn."