RIP, W.C. Heinz

This is a lousy place for mild outrage, perhaps, but it nonetheless pisses me off that there was so much footdragging and disagreement (I can only guess) about Heinz winning the Red Smith Award and now the inevitable has happened and he will only be able to win it posthumously. Would have been nice to award it to him while he was still around.

 

Sirs, Madames,

As Mr macg knows the Christian Science Monitor asked me to do a piece on Heinz a couple of years back. Never did run, was going to hit the page in the event of him winning ye olde lifetime achievement award. I'll try to look it up in my dead letter office. The one thing, though, that stands out ... I asked him if he knew how good Death of Racehorse was when he wrote. "Oh yeah," he told me. "I knew that I hit that out of the park." Oh yeah, talking about his friendship with Red Smith, he told the legend once at dinner: "You've got the Pulitzer but I'm the better cook." (I don't know if that one was in your SI profile of the beloved figure.) He also would have none of the idea that the writers of old were any better than the writers of today. (I wanted to tell him the "said Bard" story but his life was already too short for that.)

RIP

YD&OHS, etc

 

RIP to one of the best.

Run to Daylight is one of my favorite books.

 

I'm glad the reference to his contribution to M*A*S*H made the lead.

 

I was in the office today and mentioned he had died. The 62-year-old guy next to me, one of our long-timers, had no idea who he was, had never heard of him, nor of Death of a Racehorse.

Is that weird?

 

Hard to rationalize, if the guy in question spent any appreciable time in the Northeast.

 

Red Smith, who had some idea what was going on, frequently said that the racetrack provided the best storylines. Late in his career, the percentage of his time Smith spent at Belmont, Saratoga and on the classic trail increased.

 

Moment of silence, please ...

 

here is a link to a profile of heinz from the sept. 25, 2000 issue of sports illustrated with excerpts from some of Heinz's work:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/magazine/02/27/heinz.flashback092500/index.html

 

In thinking of Heinz today, I think of John Donne.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Any writer's death diminishes me, because I am committed to this great adventure -- this brotherhood and sisterhood -- we call The Writing Life.

But this death diminishes me, and all of us, a bit more so than others.

I did not know Bill Heinz. But thanks in part, because of him, I understand this: words matter.

There is music in the simple, understated elegance of clear, descriptive sentences. There is a rhythm... a candance... a heartbeat... to a good story, and it can be understood and internalized by the reader even if they only absorb it at the subconscious level. My favorite part of Death of a Racehorse has always been the rain. The rumbling thunder, the lightening in the distance, and the rain, falling faster now, hinting at the sad inevitable ending that's rushing toward us. I didn't catch it the first time. But I felt it. I understood why it was so important to framing those scenes.

Heinz was one of the first people who truly elevated the coverage of sports to the level of literature. Yes, bless the scribes who give us the daily scores and the best quotes about the sore hamstrings and No. 3 starters, for they are the underappreciated and underpaid foot soldiers in this business and always will be. But bless Heinz for giving us the human drama behind it all, for showing us the beauty of broken men standing in a ring, alone, trying to find the courage for one more round, one more fight, one more punch.

As a young(ish) writer today still trying to find his voice, one of the most important lessons I learned was about dialogue. The way a person talks says so much about him (or her), and rarely do you see that reconstructed well in today's journalism. It takes time. It takes listening. It takes just hanging around, and even editors don't always understand why tiny snippets of overheard conversation can make a piece sing in ways that direct question and answers cannot. Heinz knew dialogue. The paragraph from "The Fighter's Wife" that funky_mountain posted is a perfect example.

I was thinking of Donne's poem today not only because one of Heinz's biggest fans, some guy named Ernest Hemingway, decided to name one of his novels after a line in the poem, but because Heinz recognized that we were all a part of something, that even a washed up, uneducated Jewish boxer from Brownsville, or a broken down, unlucky ballplayer with a bad heart was a part of the main.

He didn't influence me, perhaps, as much as he influenced and inspired those who influenced and inspired me. I knew almost nothing of him until I read, years ago, that profile Jeff MacGregor did for SI that was linked in this thread. But I've caught up, in a slow and rewarding way. His work spanned generations and changed what sports writing could be. Talese, Wolfe, DeFord, Gary Smith, S.L. Price, all of them owe a debt to Heinz, for he carved the foundation we stand on today. And that's a testament to his undeniable magic.

Many blessings to his family, to his memory, and to his passion. A glass raised in his honor, and also in awe, of what seemed like an amazing life well lived.

And may the art he left behind continue to move us, especially as we pound our keyboards -- whether it's at first light or last -- trying to find the words, the rhythms, the heartbeat, the music in our next story.

Rest In Peace.

 

A great and generous soul. A reason to be proud that we share his profession.
I started this four times. Fuck it. Mr. Yeats can take it home.

And thereupon with aged, high-pitched voice
Aherne laughed, thinking of the man within,
His sleepless candle and laborious pen.

RIP, Bill.
Take notes for us, OK?