Everything They Had Read Free

who a few years earlier had started mining the newspaper microfilm and special collections of the BPL for help in writing stories on local sports history, primarily baseball. Soon after I began publishing these stories in Boston Magazine I started to hear from sports writers, most of whom wanted me to look something up on their behalf either in old newspapers or in the library’s archives. One of them must have tipped David off to the fact that I had become the de facto sports archivist at the library. One day I returned to my desk, and a note telling me to call David Halberstam was taped to my phone.
    No “while you were out” message has ever done more for a person’s self-esteem. I remember that I left it on the phone and then went to lunch, just so it would stay there a bit longer. I spoke to him later that day, and he made an appointment to visit the library a few days later.
    Most other sports writers who had contacted me before wanted me to look up material for them, and frankly, many treated me as if I were some kind of chambermaid. Not Halberstam. Not only was he extremely considerate, but after I set him up in a back room he wanted only minimal assistance and pored through the archival boxes himself. He was politely curious about me, and when I told him I had written an article about the Red Sox 1948 playoff game with the Cleveland Indians, and had been the first writer to interview Boston pitcher Denny Galehouse since he gave up the winning run more than forty years before, not only did he want to see the story, he wanted to talk. Thereafter he spoke to me as an equal, as a colleague, and as he continued his research over the next few days, we held several lengthy discussions about Boston, the Boston press, and the history of the Red Sox and Yankees. In the wake of our conversations I felt like the rookie hitter who discovered he could hit big league pitching; David Halberstam made me feel like I belonged.
    A few years later I was offered the opportunity to serve as series editor for the inaugural edition of the annual collection The Best American Sports Writing , the first book project of any kind I had ever been asked to be involved in. My editor at Houghton Mifflin asked me who I thought should serve as guest editor. I knew from the start that the collection should not be confined simply to the compound word “sportswriting” but should also include “sports writing,” the best writing on sports, a somewhat different thing. Halberstam’s work was already the best example of this. With The Summer of ’49 still on the bestseller list, and the earlier successes of The Breaks of the Game and The Amateurs still fresh, he fit the criteria perfectly. I immediately suggested that we ask Halberstam to serve as the first guest editor.
    My suggestion was, I recall, greeted with some skepticism. Not that my editor didn’t think Halberstam would be perfect for the job, but I do not think he believed that a writer of Halberstam’s stature would have any interest in serving on such a project, particularly one not yet out of the box. Naively perhaps, I thought otherwise. I boldly told my editor that I knew Halberstam from the library, and that when he contacted him, he should mention my name.
    A few days later my editor called with the happy news that David was on board. Moreover, he told me that the clincher had come when he told David that he would be working with me, providing me with yet another boost. Although many of the guest editors for The Best American Sports Writing make their selection in camera , which is their right and privilege, David was different. During the selection process he wanted to discuss the stories and solicited my input. That was a kindness I have never forgotten, for I think that together we created a sturdy template for the series, one that otherwise might have been less assured and lasting.
    I soon began to write books myself—primarily