On occasion, we write here about topics and people outside the realm of men’s fastpitch. Today is one of those days. We report the passing of a great journalist, who had a particular knack for capturing the essence of sport, David Halberstam. He died, tragically, in a car crash in Northern California yesterday, but died doing the thing he loved – writing about sports. He was on his way to meet legendary quarterback, Y.A. Title, to write of the great 1958 NFL title game. Regretably, that is a story we will never hear from him.
His legacy includes some of the best baseball books ever written, including “Summer of ’49”, “October 1964“, and “Teammates”, a poignant look back at Ted Williams and some of his teammates from the 1940’s, who cemented lifelong friendships during their playing days — some thing I am sure that everyone who plays or has played men’s fastpitch can relate to.
Halberstam had a particular affinity for the game of baseball, capturing the story of the game, but always in the context of daily life. He had a wonderful way of portraying the human side of the people he wrote about, and helping place the reader in the particular era of which he wrote. For those who wish to “visit” another era, “Summer of ’49” offers such an opportunity, a thoroughly enjoyable time capsule of the Yankee-Red Sox pennant race of 1949, not unlike the story that might be written by a great author who spent a summer following the top fastpitch teams doing battle enroute to the ISC World Tournament. His books left you with the feeling that you had been in the dugout, at the field, and along for the ride.
Halberstam will be missed, but his books live on.
From the New York Times:
April 24, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — David Halberstam, the journalist whose acclaimed books included a towering study of the Vietnam War and a poignant portrait of aging baseball stars, died while heading to an interview for a new work.
The 73-year-old writer was killed in a car crash Monday while working on a book about the legendary 1958 NFL championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants. He was on the way to interview Giants quarterback Y.A. Tittle on what was dubbed ”the greatest game ever played.”
Halberstam was riding in a car that was broadsided by another vehicle in Menlo Park, about 25 miles south of San Francisco, authorities said. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and the cause appeared to be internal injuries, according to San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault.
”The world has lost one of our greatest journalists,” said Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times, where Halberstam won a Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his Vietnam coverage.
Halberstam’s 1972 best-seller, ”The Best and the Brightest” a critical account of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia and especially Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, established him as one of the most committed journalists of his generation.
”He was the institutional memory of the Vietnam War. I think he understood it better than any other journalist,” said former CNN correspondent Peter Arnett, who won a Pulitzer for Vietnam coverage in 1966 while with The Associated Press.
By contrast, Halberstam’s 2003 book ”The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship” told the story of Boston Red Sox great Ted Williams and his decades-long relationship with teammates Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky and Dom DiMaggio.
Pesky, 87, remembered Halberstam as ”spellbinding. He was just an outstanding man.”
Halberstam’s other books included ”The Powers That Be,” a 1979 undressing of the titans of the news media; ”The Fifties,” his 1993 chronicle of that decade’s upheavals; ”Summer of ’49,” his account of that year’s Yankees-Red Sox rivalry; ”The Reckoning,” about the U.S. auto industry; and ”The Children,” a 1999 narrative about the civil rights movement.
His 2002 best-seller, ”War in a Time of Peace” — an examination of how the lessons of Vietnam have influenced American foreign policy in the post-Cold War era — was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction.
His book ”The Coldest Winter,” an account of a key early battle of the Korean War, is scheduled to be published in the fall.
At the time of Monday morning’s accident, Halberstam was being driven to an interview with Tittle, the Hall of Fame quarterback whose Giants lost the 1958 championship game to the Colts, 23-17.
The drivers of the two cars were injured, but not seriously. Halberstam was being driven by a graduate journalism student from the University of California at Berkeley, where he had visited over the weekend. The crash remained under investigation, and the Menlo Park police officer on duty early Tuesday said no further information was available.