My pet peeve: On the surface, the following is a wonderful tweet, noting the correction of a longtime injustice. I may wind up favoriting this tweet, even though on a different level, it irritates me greatly. That it came from as fine a publication as The New Yorker boggles my mind:
Congratulations to our own Roger Angell, who will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame today: http://t.co/CYWfHri7wt #TNYarchive
— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) July 26, 2014
Every year, I see major news organizations making note of writers being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Sometimes the stories mention the presence of a writers wing.
There’s just one thing…
What really happens: Writers are not inducted into the Hall of Fame. There is not a writers wing at Cooperstown. What exists is a “Scribes & Mikemen” exhibit in the Hall of Fame comprised of writers who win the J.G. Taylor Spink Award and broadcasters who win the Ford C. Frick Award. Angell and longtime Texas Rangers broadcaster Eric Nadel are the latest award winners to be added to the exhibit.
Somehow, the myth of a writers wing at the Hall of Fame gets repeated year-in, year-out. I think it represents the wishful thinking some media members seem to have that they’re comparably as important as the people they write about. I met a writer or two like this in my time covering the San Francisco 49ers. They were kind of unpleasant.
So we’re clear, I love the media exhibit at the Hall of Fame. I’m familiar with maybe half the writers in it, even some of the ones from the early 20th century (such as Charley Dryden, who was a 19th century hobo on the San Francisco docks before becoming a sportswriter.) I’m glad that Roger Angell is finally in the media exhibit. He’s long overdue.
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“For the last time” is a new column here looking to retire baseball myths that seemingly won’t die, no matter how hard reasonable people try. Let us try harder. Please feel free to email suggestions for future columns to thewomack@gmail.com.
Thanks for this Graham. This seems to be the same phenomenon as the Nobel Prize for economics … which also doesn’t exist 🙂
Angel is deserving of a honorific … its a shame many reporters believe they are the story.
I’ve personally never had a problem with people referring to a Writer’s Wing (I think it’s meant metaphorically more than literally), but 100% agree on the induction issue. Writers (Henry Chadwick excepted) and broadcasters are honored (a remarkably exclusive honor, at that), not inducted.