The New Yorker Archives

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To Tell the Truth

“But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken” (Matthew 12:36, NIV)

I consider writing a dangerous occupation. The saying of Jesus quoted above is a kind of guiding mental watchword. I write as one who believes he will give an account for his words. And over the twelve years of blogging, I’ve written millions of words. And this doesn’t count what I post on social media. I’ve a lot to account for.

Jesus mentions “empty” words. The image it calls to mind is a grain of wheat. Full words include the kernel. They nourish. And enrich. They are what they appear to be. They are true. Empty words are the husk without the grain. They deceive, leading us to believe they offer substance when there is nothing. They are trivial and mean. Trite. They lie.

What saddens me about so much of our discourse is the tolerance of known lies. I see “good Christian” people doing this as if political gamesmanship is more important than truth. I’ve contended that when we do this, we jeopardize the truth claims of the Christian message. Why would people believe I am telling the truth when I say Jesus rose from the dead if I tell them baldface lies to their face?

This is one of the reasons I love good literature, fiction or non-fiction. There is a “ring of truth” in good literature, an effort to be true to character, true to life, and in non-fiction, true to facts, insofar as it is in the writer’s capacity to do so. It protects me from becoming inured to lies. And it renews in me the hope that goodness, truth, and beauty will prevail in the end. It is what I hope to do with my own words. I write coram Deo, before God, and want to give a good account when the day comes.

Five Articles Worth Reading

For an example of one careful with words, consider Robert Caro. Over his typewriter (!) are the words “The only thing that matters is on this page” “Rifling Through the Archives With Legendary Historian Robert Caro” recounts the work of this fine writer, who is racing against his own mortality to complete the final volume of his work on Lyndon Johnson. I’m rooting for him, since I’ve reveled in the others.

Bibliophiles love to learn about upcoming books, especially from their favorite authors or on timely topics. The Millions has become know as the “go to” preview. “How THE MILLIONS’ Seasonal Previews Get Made with Sophia Stewart” offers an inside look at the process behind the preview.

The New Yorker is one hundred years old. “The New Yorker and the American Voice” offers an appraisal of the magazine’s contribution to American letters and tries to describe its distinctive voice.

You’ve seen the pictures of libraries with shelves extending beyond the reach of the tallest, accessed by a special ladder. Maybe some of us have dreamed of having such a library in our homes. “The Ascendance of the Book Ladder” gives us a history of this piece of hardware about which many of us have fantasized.

Every year I read a baseball book. I think I’ve found one for this year from this review of a biography of “The Banty, Blustering Genius of Earl Weaver.” I only wish he had managed in Cleveland!

Quote of the Week

Educator and author Mary Ellen Chase was born February 24, 1887. She made this statement to which I would personally attest:

“There is no substitute for books in the life of a child.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I just began reading Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club and love the premise of four sharp seniors in a retirement community who get together every Thursday to sift through the evidence of unsolved murders. Looks like there is great fun ahead, not only in this volume but those to follow (according to my daughter-in-law).

I hate throwing out old books (except in the case of mildew). I even find someone to give ARCs to. But I met my match when I discovered old software manuals from the 1990’s in the back of a cupboard. I couldn’t even foist them on my son who loves old computer operating systems and games. Alas, to the recycling bin they went!

Editing is behind the scenes work. Good editors take a “diamond in the rough” and polish it so that the writer shines through. I did a bit of that in my last job. I have a friend who does this work at a publishing house from which I often review books. I see his name in the acknowledgements of a number of worthwhile books. I hope we never outsource this work to AI. I can see his personal touch over and over in the authors he’s worked with. And from other books, I gather this is so with many editors.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: The Month in Reviews: February 2025

Tuesday: Paul Barnett, The Trials of Jesus

Wednesday: R. F. Kuang, Yellowface

Thursday: Michael A. Wilkinson, Crowned with Glory and Honor: A Chalcedonian Anthropology

Friday: William Kent Krueger, Heaven’s Keep

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for February 23-March 1, 2025!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page

The Summer Game, Roger Angell. New York: Open Road Media, 2013 (originally published in 1972).

Summary: A collection of Angell’s essays covering the ten seasons of Major League Baseball from 1962 to 1971.

This year we lost Roger Angell, the long time writer for The New Yorker, at the ripe old age of 101. He was a shaping force at the magazine as well as being considered by some, “The Poet Laureate of baseball.” I knew of Angell’s writing, but it was not until now that I discovered why he was so esteemed. Quite simply, he gave words to what any of us who love the game feel about its attraction. The final essay of this book, “The Interior Stadium” gets as close as anything I’ve read to describing the game’s mystique:

“Form is the imposition of a regular pattern upon varying and unpredictable circumstances, but the patterns of baseball, for all the game’s tautness and neatness, are never regular. Who can predict the winner and shape of today’s game? Will it be a brisk, neat two-hour shutout? A languid, error-filled 13-2 laugher, A riveting three hour, fourteen-inning deadlock? What other sport produces these manic swings?”

The Summer Game collects articles Angell wrote for The New Yorker from 1962 to 1971, which is quite wonderful because this was the time when I most avidly followed the name, reading The Sporting News and watching every World Series game I could (when I was not in school). He begins with spring training at the camp of the New York Mets, who were destined to become New York’s lovable losers until late in the decade, when they became champions. He describes games at the old Polo Grounds before Shea Stadium was built and the “Go” shouters.

He traces the championship teams of the sixties and especially the World Series matchups between them: the Yankees and the Dodgers, the Giants, the Cardinals, the Red Sox, the Twins, the Mets, the Reds, the Orioles, and the Pirates. There are all the stars I grew up with–Mays, Maris, and Mantle, Koufax and Gibson and the generation that followed, Yastrzemski, Rose and Perez, Clemente and Stargell.

As the players changed, so did the stadiums. Angell describes the demise of the old box-like stadiums with seats close to the game for the bigger stadiums in the round, used for multiple sports in many cases but with fans much more distant. It is ironic that most of these stadiums that were “new” when Angell wrote have since been demolished in favor of parks much more like the old fields with modern amenities. Even the shiny new Astrodome, although still preserved, no longer serves as a baseball venue.

The heart of the book is Angell’s accounts of the World Series games of each year. He brings back memories of the dominating performances of Koufax and Drysdale, and of Bob Gibson, who broke the hearts of Boston fans in his showdown with Jim Lonborg. Gibson, pitching his third game of the series was dead tired but hung on to win 7-2. Likewise, he reminds me of the hopes fulfilled when the Pirates in nearby Pittsburgh overcame the dominating Orioles of Earl Weaver to win the 1971 World Series. Some have criticized his inning by inning, sometimes play-by-play approach, but for me, it was a walk back in time, a reminder of great baseball of the past. He fills in the detail and drama of those games long tucked away in the recesses of memory.

He describes a game in transition as leagues expanded, playoffs were introduced and old stars faded as new names like Vida Blue, Catfish Hunter, and Reggie Jackson came on the scene, as TV revenues grew and with them, salaries, and new stadiums. And yet, it is the same summer game, played on a diamond, between baselines, nine players in the lineup on each side, fans in the seats behind first or third, filling out scorecards, rooting for the home team, vicariously sharing in the glory of the game.

Thank you Roger Angell! One can only hope there will be baseball in heaven so that Roger Angell can write about it.