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184 ON WRITING WELL by, a loner. It is essentially a lonely game. No other player visible to my generation has concentrated within himself so much of the sport s poignance, has so assiduously refined his natural skills, has so constantly brought to the plate that intensity of competence that crowds the throat with joy. What gives the article its depth is that its the work of a writer, not a sportswriter. Updike knows there's not much more to say about Williams s matchless ability at the plate: the famous swing, the eyes that could see the stitches on a ball arriving at 90 miles an hour. But the mystery of the man is still unsolved, even on the final day of his career, and that's where Updike steers our attention, suggesting that baseball was suited to such a reclusive star because it's a lonely game. Baseball lonely? Our great American tribal rite? Think about it, Updike says. Something in Updike made contact with something in Williams: two solitary craftsmen laboring in the glare of the crowd. Look for this human bond. Remember that athletes are men and women who become part of our lives during the season, acting out our dreams or filling some other need for us, and we want that bond to be honored. Hold the hype and give us heroes who are believable. Even Babe Ruth was ushered down from the sanitized slopes of Olympus and converted into a real person, with appetites as big as his girth, in Robert Creamer's fine biography Babe. The same qualities would go into Creamer's later book, Stengel. Until then readers willingly settled for the standard version of Casey Stengel as an aging pantaloon who mangled the language and somehow managed to win 10 pennants. Creamer's Stengel is far more interesting: a complex man who was nobody's fool and whose story is very much the story of baseball itself, stretching back to 19th-century rural America. Honest portraiture is only one of many new realities in what used to be a fairy-tale world. Sport is now a major frontier of
Sports 185 social change, and some of the nations most vexing issues—drug abuse, violence, women's rights, minorities in management, television contracts—are being played out in our stadiums, grandstands and locker rooms. If you want to write about America, this is one place to pitch your tent. Take a hard look at such stories as the financial seduction of school and college athletes. It s far more than a sports story. It's the story of our values and our priorities in the education of our children. King Football and King Basketball sit secure on their throne. How many coaches get paid more than the college president, the school principal and the teachers? Money is the looming monster in American sport, its dark shadow everywhere. Salaries of obscene magnitude swim through the sports section, which now seems to contain as much financial news as the financial section. How much money a player earned for winning a golf or tennis tournament is mentioned in the lead of the story, ahead of the score. Big money has also brought big emotional trouble. Much of todays sports reporting has nothing to do with sport. First we have to be told whose feelings are hurt because he's being booed by fans who think a $6 million player ought to bat higher than .225 and run after fly balls hit in his direction. In tennis the pot of gold is huge and the players are strung as tightly as their high-tech racquets—millionaires quick to whine and to swear at the referee and the linesmen. In football and basketball the pay is sky-high, and so are the sulks. The ego of the modern athlete has in turn rubbed off on the modern sportswriter. I'm struck by how many sportswriters now think they are the story, their thoughts more interesting than the game they were sent to cover. I miss the days when reporters had the modesty to come right out and say who won. Today that news can be a long time in arriving. Half the sportswriters think they are Guy de Maupassant, masters of the exquisitely delayed lead. The rest think they are Sigmund Freud, privy to the ath-
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On Writing Well
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On Writing Well cssao THE CLASSIC G
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C O N T E N T S osso INTRODUCTION 1
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INTRODUCTION CSSQ When I first wrot
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INTRODUCTION xi writers worse. Good
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P A R T I -esee- Principles
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4 ON WRITING WELL Absolutely not, h
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6 ON WRITING WELL of gimmicks to "p
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8 ON WRITING WELL struction that le
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10 ON WRITING WELL is too dumb or t
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12 ON WRITING WELL Faced with such
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14 ON WRITING WELL typical of hundr
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16 ON WRITING WELL think there's mu
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QSSSO Style So much for early warni
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20 ON WRITING WELL unique. The read
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22 ON WRITING WELL I realize that t
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24 ON WRITING WELL aging boxers don
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26 ON WRITING WELL tion or sleep. N
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28 ON WRITING WELL who fill the air
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30 ON WRITING WELL religion and the
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32 ON WRITING WELL and it allows fo
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34 ON WRITING WELL someone is forev
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36 ON WRITING WELL instance, and yo
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CSSSO Usage All this talk about goo
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40 ON WRITING WELL Mumford that the
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42 ON WRITING WELL Just where Webst
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44 ON WRITING WELL Meanwhile the ba
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46 ON WRITING WELL back, though I'd
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8 CSS30 Unity You learn to write by
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Unity 51 Such fatal mixtures are co
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Unity 53 When your zest begins to e
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csso The Lead and the Ending The mo
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The Lead and the Ending 57 I've oft
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The Lead and the Ending 59 One reas
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The Lead and the Ending 61 warehous
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The Lead and the Ending 63 general
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The Lead and the Ending 65 (lia and
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The Lead and the Ending 67 Somethin
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Bits & Pieces 69 sive-voice writers
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Bits & Pieces 71 tences become long
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Bits & Pieces 73 pistol might be lo
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Bits & Pieces 75 go." Look for all
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Bits & Pieces 77 The common reactio
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Bits & Pieces 79 who are so busy th
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Bits & Pieces 81 of thought. Compar
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Bits & Pieces 83 This still leaves
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Bits & Pieces 85 eral different way
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Bits & Pieces 87 which sick people
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Bits & Pieces 89 It's no longer nec
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Bits & Pieces 91 know that about ho
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P A R T I I I OBSO Forms
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96 ON WRITING WELL midst, and none
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98 ON WRITING WELL Magazines were s
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1 2 CSSO Writing About People The I
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102 ON WRITING WELL building turned
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104 ON WRITING WELL roommate. With
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106 ON WRITING WELL Obviously the t
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108 ON WRITING WELL used words and
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110 ON WRITING WELL call the person
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112 ON WRITING WELL revelation by J
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114 ON WRITING WELL Now, nobody thi
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1 3 -esee- Writing About Places The
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118 ON WRITING WELL rency. Half the
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120 ON WRITING WELL Bernardino out
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122 ON WRITING WELL American spore.
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124 ON WRITING WELL hood of the wri
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126 ON WRITING WELL to 110 degrees
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128 ON WRITING WELL with a hawk tha
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130 ON WRITING WELL Nine of my site
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132 ON WRITING WELL recalled that u
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Page 245: PART IV Og&O Attitudes
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234 ON WRITING WELL There is a kind
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236 ON WRITING WELL meet it. A woma
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238 ON WRITING WELL will not only s
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240 ON WRITING WELL obsession with
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242 ON WRITING WELL thousand years
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244 ON WRITING WELL with the men an
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246 ON WRITING WELL ful. I'm often
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248 ON WRITING WELL Also remember t
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250 ON WRITING WELL machine that sa
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252 ON WRITING WELL much as you see
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254 ON WRITING WELL WOODPECKER, APR
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256 ON WRITING WELL failure—aren'
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258 ON WRITING WELL write. She said
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260 ON WRITING WELL room. A man wou
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262 ON WRITING WELL larger part of
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264 ON WRITING WELL Writing is rela
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266 ON WRITING WELL from one senten
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268 ON WRITING WELL Gordon Laing in
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270 ON WRITING WELL serving quotes
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272 ON WRITING WELL a certain way a
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274 ON WRITING WELL always feel tha
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276 ON WRITING WELL acter. As a tee
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278 ON WRITING WELL knew nothing ab
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280 ON WRITING WELL within a hundre
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282 ON WRITING WELL happened to fin
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284 ON WRITING WELL When you get su
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24 -esse- Write as Well as You Can
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288 ON WRITING WELL erosity and wis
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290 ON WRITING WELL submit an artic
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292 ON WRITING WELL repeated, and h
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294 ON WRITING WELL moving in grace
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296 SOURCES 66 "Coolidge," by H. L.
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298 SOURCES 188-90 Confessions of a
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I N D E X osao Aciman, André, 136
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Index 303 Eisenhower, Dwight, 239 E
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Index 305 Lin, Maya, 130 Lincoln, A
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Index 307 Satire, 209 Saturday Even
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