For a time, for no real reason other than my awe at living in the same lifetime as a legend, I would post reminders to Twitter that Roger Angell was still alive. Angell, who passed away on Friday at the age of 101, was an active baseball writer well into his late 90s, and was one of the most revered voices in baseball writing perhaps of all time.
There will be many pieces about Angell written over the next days and weeks, many by our current generation’s best and brightest. What Roger Angell represented was the ability for baseball writing to be literature, for words about sports to have weight and value beyond a box office summary or game recap.