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Saunders: Farewell Roger Angell, you helped me fall in love with baseball and writing

Roger Angell, the American essayist who wrote about baseball with insight, compassion and probing humor, died Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 101.

He was one of my boyhood heroes. I’ve always longed to write like him.

My dad, Dusty Saunders, the longtime Rocky Mountain News journalist, who is 90 years old, introduced me to Angell’s writing when I was a teenager. Over the years he gave me a number of Angell’s books. On Christmas morning in 1988, his gift was Angell’s collection of essays, “Season Ticket.” My dad inscribed it with the words, “Love on Christmas, 1988.