The stories came alive by talking with fans in the stands of Silver Stadium
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Near the end of “The Interior Stadium,” his 1971 essay on baseball’s movements and meanings, Roger Angell takes on time.
“Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly, keep hitting, keep the tally alive, and you have defeated time,” wrote Angell, a New Yorker magazine writer and editor, who died on May 20 at age 101. “You remain forever young.”
It had seemed that Angell remained forever young himself as he kept writing well into his 90s, not only about baseball, but on other subjects, including his own aging.
His baseball essays provided a get-out-of-jail-free card to sportswriters, for he championed a different way of looking at games, of taking the time you had – sometimes it was not that much if you were on deadline – and trying to understand and translate the dynamics at play.
For sure, Angell, whom I never met, gave me a gift by example.
When I was in the sports department of the Democrat and Chronicle in the early 1990s, I didn’t have a beat. I wasn’t quite sure why I had been stationed there, and I’m not sure my editors were, either. But they had given me time.
I seized the time to go to games and talk, not to players but to fans. On lazy summer nights I could wander around Silver Stadium – I loved that place – and listen in on the banter that provided the background music to the game itself.
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The fans and I would chat about everything, be it the mysteries of the infield fly rule, or their grandchildren’s upcoming confirmations. A story would float to the top. My day would be saved.
Sometimes, too, I would climb up to the press box at Silver. Scorekeeper Len Lustik would hold court there, Bob Matthews egging him on.
There would be a game on the field, balls, strikes, hits, but the back and forth in the press box moved faster, the words flying. I would listen, just listen, that was enough.
The Silver Stadium press box was an afterthought, a shed on top of a roof. The press box at Frontier was slicker, and the press box at the Buffalo Bills stadium in Orchard Park was fancier still, rows of seats, food, good phone connections.
When I entered the Bills press box for the first time, the man in charge demanded, “What are you doing here?” I faked an answer, said I was on assignment from the Democrat and Chronicle, and then I slunk away, hoping to determine what that assignment was.
The other writers – Sal Maiorana, Scott Pitoniak, Leo Roth and Jeff Legwold – knew their stuff. They watched the game, interviewed players, divvied up the stories.
In the stands, I’d search for fans from Rochester. Then I’d ask a question, prime the pump. That was enough, for all the fans wanted to share their history with the Bills. Pretty soon, a story had found me.
Back in the press box, I’d put my head down and write. Sal and the others multitasked, typing and arguing at the same time, complaining about the players, coaches and editors who haunted their lives.
Out-of-town writers would be there, too. Once George Vecsey of the New York Times, one of my idols, came by. I think I said hello.
I wish that Roger Angell had dropped in, just once. And then, maybe a month or a year later, I would have read a Roger Angell essay on a Bills game. He would have seen what the rest of us missed. He would have stopped time, awful time, in its tracks. His story would remain forever young.
Turkey talk
In response to last week’s column, I’ve received a fair number of recommendations for where to get a really good hot turkey sandwich. I’m compiling a list and after a few weeks of taste testing will report back. Thanks very much.
From his home in Geneseo, Livingston County, retired senior editor Jim Memmott, writes Remarkable Rochester, who we were, who we are. He can be reached at jmemmott@gannett.com or write Box 274, Geneseo, NY 14454.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Fans in Silver Stadium in Rochester NY brought the stories alive
