Metaphors R Us

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Thu Jun 19, 2003 7:42 pm

Strength and dignity delivered Doby to greatness
AP Member Exchange
By JERRY IZENBERG
The Star-Ledger
This is the way Larry Doby left us. The doctors long ago knew the medical count on him was 0-2. He lost a kidney ... but he went out and played golf. He fought the pain of cancer ... but he kept visiting schools in Newark and Paterson to remind the kids for whom he cared so much that itâ€™s not how you start but how you finish.
He took the treatments, he fought a slow, painful battle against fatigue ... but even then he laughed on the telephone and he shared memories and he never, ever, ever complained.
And all the while there was that obscenity called Death, which has no shame and no pride, standing on the mound, jeering, loading up another spitball and hollering:
â€˜â€˜You canâ€™t win. Why donâ€™t you quit?â€™â€™
And in the back roads of Larryâ€™s mind he kept picking up the pitcherâ€™s release with eyes that were born to see fastballs, fouling off pitch after pitch, with that incredibly fluid swing, grinding his spikes deeper into the dirt, staring out at a pitcher nobody else could see and daring him with his last breath:
â€˜â€˜Go ahead, meat. Bring it. Bring the heat. Bring the junk. Itâ€™s all the same to me. You want me? You gotta do better than that.â€™â€™
He died yesterday ... but not his legacy ... not his gift to all of us.***The man who brought integrated baseball to middle America deserved better than this.***

tommangan · **Posted:** Fri Jun 20, 2003 12:47 am

At first I thought it wasn't so bad, but then I kept reading. Lordy, that's 19 subbasements below contempt.

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Fri Jun 20, 2003 2:12 am

That's why I posted so goddamned much of it.If I were really merciless, I'd point out each of the direct "references" to popular baseball movies. But I won't.

Bakelite · **Posted:** Fri Jun 20, 2003 6:10 am

You might consider Jerry a hack, but he was a close friend of Doby and meant each word sincerely.Work your way past the lead, read the rest of it and judge for yourself.Jerry weighs in again today with the help of Bill Veeck's son Mike.[ June 20, 2003: Message edited by: Dean Betz ]

tommangan · **Posted:** Fri Jun 20, 2003 8:51 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Dean Betz:
You might consider Jerry a hack, but he was a close friend of Doby and meant each word sincerely.<hr></blockquote>If so it just epitomizes how cliche-ridden sports copy is, and the extent to which newspapers put up with it. 
going back to read rest of story now

tommangan · **Posted:** Fri Jun 20, 2003 9:08 am

Dean: I have to give you credit for having enough patience to wade all the way through. There was a fair amount of interesting reportage in there .... so why does he have to be so damn writerly at the start. I didn't see anything I cared about until I got to the part about him being the loneliest black man in North America on his first day with the Indians. It's gripping stuff and buried way the hell down in the story. Why not lead with it? You were exactly right in telling us to shut and read the story, but I can tell from the guy's white whiskers that he's old enough to know how to shut up and tell the story. A guy who's genuinely grieving over losing someone he really admires can be cut some slack. Maybe his editors did that --held their noses at the silliness up top and put it in the paper. But it's not really a shining reflection on the craft.

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Fri Jun 20, 2003 9:13 am

Larry Doby was a brave ballplayer, and Izenberg could be the Red Smith of his day, but maybe reporters shouldn't write about their friends, and perhaps editors shouldn't be afraid to rein them in when grieving reporters can't control themselves and are too close to a story.I can't imagine many readers wading through torturous prose to get to the good part.

Bakelite · **Posted:** Fri Jun 20, 2003 9:27 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by tom mangan:
Dean: I have to give you credit for having enough patience to wade all the way through.
<hr></blockquote>No credit due: I get paid to read this stuff.I also wish he'd led with the good material that was lower in the column.That said, and I realize that it's very untesty of me to say so, I admire Jerry Izenberg and wish I had a tenth of his talent.[ June 20, 2003: Message edited by: Dean Betz ]

tommangan · **Posted:** Fri Jun 20, 2003 9:30 am

I guess we could start a whole other thread on why columnists never seem to suffer the touch of the editor's pencil, and why so many of them prefer the sound of their own typing to the actual work of telling stories people care about. In this case, when the guy gets down to actual reportage and storytelling, he does a fine job. Reporting is what gets most columnists into their cushy gigs, and it seems like reporting is the first thing they give up once they've got the job.

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Fri Jun 20, 2003 6:12 pm

For the record, I did read the whole story before posting the lede here. And as a big baseball fan, I too found parts of it very interesting.But, as my posting of the lede is intended to point out, the good parts of the rest of the story just make the wince-inducing image of Death as a pitcher that much more painful.That said, I may have been a little TOO testy in my asterisk-surrounded comment. The story did make clear that Doby was a friend of the author's and I shouldn't have mocked that.[ June 20, 2003: Message edited by: Matthew Grieco ]

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