Southern Bookman

Farewell, Nick Carfardo, Boston Globe baseball writer

I wasn't that familiar with Boston Globe baseball writer Nick Carfardo's work.

Every now and then, I'd rechannel my baseball junkie childhood and download a Sunday Globe just to peruse Carfardo's extensive notes column. Or, I'd read one of his game stories or feature on a Red Sox player.

Carfardo, 62, died this week while doing the job that never got old for him, covering the Red Sox beat for the Globe. He collapsed outside the team's spring training clubhouse, and was rushed to the hospital. His death ended a 40-year newspaper career. Along with his weekly columns, feature stories and game coverage, Carfardo also wrote several books, including one on the New England Patriots from a year he spent covering pro football.

His colleagues like Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy said he never took a day off, and traveled with the Red Sox on every road trip, season after season. Even when traveling, he'd carry out his extensive reporting for his notes column, which covered the entire Major Leagues.

Mentored by Will McDonough, and following in the tradition of notes column originator Pete Gammons, Carfardo remained true to his newspaper calling. Although ink ran in his blood, the notes column generated national online readership. Baseball traditionalists liked that he still talked to scouts, even when their authority had been undermined by the new generation of metrics gurus.

A chorus of tributes from colleagues and baseball insiders had a common theme that Carfardo was a generous, modest man in a field of competitive, ego-driven self-promoters. Competitors from other newspapers recalled their love for him.

Carfardo had escaped another Massachusetts winter to head to spring training in Florida, full of the hope of another new season. But Opening Day will arrive without Nick Carfardo, leaving an emptiness at Fenway Park's press box.

 

Farewell, Don Newcombe, ace of the Brooklyn Dodgers

Don Newcombe, one of the great black stars of the postwar Brooklyn Dodgers, ravaged his immense talent with alcohol.

The 92-year-old, a 6-4, 240-pound right-handed pitcher who joined Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella in overcoming racial prejudice to lead the Dodgers to five National League championships and the 1955 World Series title, died Tuesday after a long illness, according to news reports.

Following Satchel Paige into the major leagues, Newcombe was the first black pitcher to win 20 games. He was also the first major league player to win the rookie of the year, most valuable player and Cy Young awards.

In 1956, he won the Cy Young and National League MVP awards with a 27-7 record. His career was interrupted by two years in the Army during the Korean War, and he started out in the Negro Leagues before Robinson broke the major league color barrier for the Dodgers.

A mean and surly drunk, Newcombe achieved peace and redemption in later life after giving up alcohol. Newcombe fell short of the Hall of Fame, although his career statistics are comparable with those of hall members like Dizzy Dean, but gained a larger triumph in overcoming his addiction.

Showing the enduring power of newspaper sportswriting, Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke in a wonderful tribute to Newcombe tells how he prevailed over bitterness to become a beloved role model and adviser for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

One of the Brooklyn Dodgers' last remaining "Boys of Summer," Newcombe exemplified the game's spirit of grace and renewal.

Farewell, Lee Radziwill

The Sunday New York Times' wasteland of unreadable articles yielded one piece that held my attention: a testament to Lee Radziwill's momentous life. The sister of Jackie Kennedy Onassis died Saturday at age 85, according to the Times obituary.

One of the last links to John F. Kennedy's era of glamour and international adventurism, Radziwill led a multi-hued life of celebrity and dilettantism. Reading the Times obituary, I was reminded of Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth's sister who enjoyed a similar life of aristocratic swanning among the smart set.

The youngest daughter of swashbuckling financier "Black Jack" Beauvoir and socialite Janet Norton Lee, Radziwill like her famous sister grew up in the privileged atmosphere of elite schools, finely furnished homes and artistic pursuits. Both Caroline Lee and Jacqueline were also given the independence to pursue professional careers. After graduating from college, they traveled together on an old-style international tour.

Lee gave staunch support to her sister after two tragedies that defined her legacy as first lady. When Jackie and JFK lost their infant son Patrick a week after he was born, Lee orchestrated Jackie's two-week retreat from public life abroad Aristotle Onassis' yacht. Lee introduced Jackie to the Greek billionaire who would become Jackie's second husband. The two sisters reportedly had a falling out over the marriage.

Following JFK's assassination soon after the child's death, Lee joined with Robert F. Kennedy in comforting and advising the widowed first lady, whose fortitude entranced the nation.

Along her marriage and divorce to Poland's Prince Stanislaw Radziwill, one of three husbands, Lee pursued careers as an actress, writer, filmmaker, interior designer and entrepreneur. She was a member of an international circle of fame and wealth that included Truman Capote and the Rolling Stones.

Among Radziwill's most memorable accomplishments was the "Grey Gardens" documentary about her eccentric aunt Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter,Edith Bouvier Beale, who lived in aristocratic squalor in a rambling, dilapidated home in East Hampton, New York. The scenes of Lee arriving at the Beales' squalid home and their resistance to her rehabilitation efforts make for great comic-tragic cinema.

While living in Jackie Kennedy Onassis' shadow was a tough act, Radziwill carried it out with grace, style and imagination. Like her famous sister, Lee was one of the great ladies of her time.

From entertainment to news, the content tides keep churning

Competition grows fierce in the quality TV jungle as the news media landscape shifts.

While more receive information and entertainment through screens, embattled traditional print media still deliver the best guides to the burgeoning universe of choices, the battle for consumers' time.

Showing new Vanity Fair editor Radhika Jones' commitment to extensively reported and well-written long articles as ad revenues and newsstand sales decline, writer Joy Press in the magazine's annual Hollywood issue delves into HBO's efforts to stay atop the TV world as Netflix and Amazon gain strength and Disney, Apple and others enter the streaming world.

Displaying the continued value of old-fashioned business reporting, The Wall Street Journal Wednesday looked into Apple's so far unsuccessful effort to sign publishers like The New York Times and the Washington Post to a news subscription service.

The two articles trace the interconnected lines of the new media world. Along with streaming movies and TV shows, happy couch voyagers can also play video games, engage in virtual reality and listen to music services. Seeking to stay afloat are print magazines, books. movies, traditional TV networks and cable channels and the theater. While ESPN falls, low ratings for the lackluster Super Bowl give warning that mega sports events are no longer guaranteed to draw mass audiences.

While local newspapers die and the online world teems with voices beyond the mainstream, the new TV world gives a fertile market for content producers, once known as writers, playwrights, producers.

Press in her Vanity Fair piece outlines HBO's changing strategy under new owner Time Warner, a cable and media conglomerate seeking to stay ahead of changes such as viewers abandoning their cable boxes.

Credited for launching the "quality TV" era with must-see Sunday-night shows like "The Sopranos," "The Wire" and "Sex and The City," HBO wants to expand its content and move toward the streaming services' watch anytime model. The end of "The Game of Thrones" will leave a void the channel hopes to fill with a prequel related to the fantasy show.

With its much larger content budget, Netflix matched HBO with 23 Emmys. Now Apple, Disney and traditional TV networks are jumping into the streaming world, with HBO also entering the stream.

HBO's established Sunday night model offers advantages. Shows like the recently launched third season of "True Detective" are seen as shared national events, receiving strong media attention. Even high-quality shows can disappear in the Netflix content flood.

As digital models supplant print, Apple's news service would give subscribers a selection of news articles through use of an app, according to the WSJ. Newspapers would share revenue with Apple, based on readership numbers. The New York Times and Washington Post, whose online subscriptions have skyrocketed during the Trump presidency, are reluctant to join, according to the article.

The increasing number of streaming services will make for a chaotic spectrum of choices. From TV dramas and comedies to documentaries and comic specials, consumers can remove themselves from politics, environmental news and international crises. The ability to distinguish between real and fake news will decline. Or perhaps the country's citizens will renew their commitment to keeping informed and remaining involved in civic life.

 

 

New York Times looks at school board-Exxon battle in Baton Rouge

The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board upset the Red Stick's business leaders recently by denying a $2.9 million property tax break to the Exxon/Mobil refinery, the Louisiana capital city's biggest employer.

An article by New York Times business reporter Richard Fausset Tuesday gave an adequate spot-news summary of the controversy without examining deeper issues of public education, racism and class differences in the Mississippi River town where I grew up.

Fausett says that an executive order by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards allowed local governments to oppose tax breaks to businesses, previously controlled by an obscure state agency. The state body had regularly approved the Exxon/Mobil tax break, but after Edwards' order, the financially strapped school board rejected the perk.

While Faussett describes Baton Rouge as "business friendly," the city and Louisiana consistently rank low for attracting new businesses. The byzantine tax system set up by Huey P. Long in the 1930s still discourages businesses from coming into the state, according to a recent column by the Baton Rouge Advocate's Larry Keller.

For years, Long-legacy taxes on big oil eased property owners' tax burden. When local homeowners saw their assessments rise in the 1960s, anti-tax fervor led to severe restrictions on local government revenues. Fausett reports that the school board faces a $30 million budget shortfall, partially a result of property owners' hostility to taxes. 

Former Gov. Bobby Jindal gave huge tax breaks to businesses, nearly bankrupting the state and sapping funding for Louisiana State University and other schools. In recent years, Baton Rouge has received new businesses, with innovative LSU programs generating a small but vibrant surge in startups.

Among the issues Fausset doesn't examine is what the school board-Exxon dispute reveals about Baton Rouge's long neglect of public schools and the underlying racial and class conflicts.

Soaring unhappiness with the city and parish school system has brought a campaign by affluent white neighborhoods to break away and form their own city. While Exxon and other petrochemical plants are located on the poverty-stricken northside, the rebellious white areas are on the prosperous southside, insulated from the pollution-spewing plants.

When I was a child, public education received universal support from white neighborhoods. When the school system began long delayed integration in the late 1960s, many white residents turned away from the public schools. For years, a federal judge ran the city and parish school system, ordering a much-hated busing system. Adding to the long-established Catholic school system, private schools sprung up.

Exxon and the other petrochemical plants made Baton Rouge a stronger union town than most Southern cities. When I was growing up, Baton Rouge's boom or bust economy was periodically disrupted by violent strikes. To counter the AFL-CIO's power, businesses formed the Public Affairs Research Council, which issued reports and exerted influence on the state legislature. Superceding race, those class conflicts still roil the community.

In the last decade or so, Baton Rouge has built a more diverse economy. As Keller reported in his column, downtown Baton Rouge now has more than 1,000 hotel rooms, and the long desolate downtown now draws conventions and visitors with good museums, theaters, nightclubs, music venues, restaurants and tourist attractions.

But while downtown and the Southside thrive, the northside remains blighted. Once stable white blue-collar neighborhoods have deteriorated, and the city's murder rate has reached a crisis point.

As Faussett reported, the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups blasted the school board's action as "radical." The school board and supporters said it was long past time for the wealthy corporation to pay its fair share.

The controversy will pass away, but Baton Rouge will remain divided on public education, race and class.

 

 

 

 

Amy Chozick a girl on the plane covering Hillary Clinton in "Chasing Hillary"

Former New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson in 2013 assigned Amy Chozick to cover Hillary Clinton's expected 2016 presidential campaign, 649 days before Clinton announced her candidacy.

Abramson's decision was derided as Times excess, loading the dice for Clinton. For Chozick, covering the former first lady and secretary of state turned into a life-consuming obsession.

Among Clinton associates, the Times' blanket Clinton coverage was seen as another effort to torpedo her.

Beginning with the Times' notorious Whitewater stories during the Bill Clinton presidency, the Clinton camp had seen the Times as an enemy as incessant as the right wing propaganda machine.

Chozick's "Chasing Hillary" divulges her days and nights on the campaign trail covering the enigmatic Clinton from the first halcyon days when she appeared destined to become the first woman president to her crushing upset loss to Donald Trump. Although Abramson was fired, Chozick keeps up her incessant coverage.

In part a campaign chronicle evoking those of Richard Ben Cramer, Timothy Crouse and Theodore White, the book is also a memoir, presenting vignettes of Chozick's Jewish childhood in San Antonio, her move to New York City as a young woman with burning ambitions to be a writer and her rise to the Times after starting out as an intern at Conde Nast.

Along the way, Chozick also covered Hillary Clinton's losing 2008 Democratic campaign against Barack Obama for The Wall Street Journal. Earlier, she was a reporter in Tokyo for the WSJ.

Her personal anecdotes veer toward self-absorption. The often unflattering self-portrait dredges up stereotypes of the whiny, indulged Jewish young woman. She raises sympathy with her fears that her "fertility window" is closing. At the end of the book, her sadness at Clinton's loss is brightened by news of her pregnancy.

Also drawing support is Chozick's disclosure of the brutal abuse she receives on social media, the most noxious from Bernie Sanders "bros," not Trump supporters.

Another hazard is the misogyny and hostility of male Clinton aides, whom she calls "the Guys." She uses pseudonyms for the manipulative, sexist Clinton aides who ravage her coverage.

"The Guys" are called Brown Loafers Guy, Policy Guy, Hired Gun Guy, and the particularly loathsome "Outside Guy." Politico titillated Washington insiders by identifying "the Guys."

She does name top campaign aides like Robby Mook. The portrait of Mook's tone-deaf decisions that led to Clinton's humiliation probably made him wish he'd also received a pseudonym.

The book also chastises The New York Times for its coverage of Clinton, particularly its fixation on Clinton's use of a private server to send emails. Later, Chozick blasts the newspaper for its "cover the zone" package on the emails the FBI discovers on the computer of Anthony Weiner, the husband of close Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

I wondered if Abramson would have scaled back the Weiner email coverage if she had still been at the Times. Abramson's replacement, Dean Bacquet, showed even more of an obsession to examine the Clinton campaign's inner workings.

Chozick blames herself for participating in the Times anti-Clinton barrage. She calls herself an unwitting Russian agent for writing stories on Wikileaks' disclosure of emails hacked from Clinton campaign leader John Podesta.

The reporters covering Clinton are nearly all women, yet Clinton remains largely unavailable to them. The flirtatious Clinton prefers male reporters, Chozick discloses.

"Chasing Hillary" sounds the drumbeat of disaster. The campaign's constant efforts to retool Clinton's image and message betray a central problem: Clinton was never able to express a reason for wanting to be president.

After spending her personal money in the 2008 Democratic primary run against Obama, Clinton grew disastrously budget-conscious in 2016, ignoring pleas by local operations in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to send more resources. Winning those states played a major role in Trump's electoral vote victory.

Along with a complex portrait of Hillary Clinton - she's a character from Greek tragedy - Chozick captures Bill Clinton's multi-sided personality. Displaying Trump-like self-absorption, Bill Clinton struts through the pages, narcissistic and needy.

Chozick shows how the former president crippled Hillary's chances, especially neutralizing fallout from Trump's "pussy-grabbing" Access Hollywood tape. Chozick believes Hillary made a major mistake in fearing to forcefully criticize Trump because of worries that blasting Trump would draw new attention to Bill Clinton's past as a sexual abuser.

But Chozick also believes the campaign erred in not heeding Bill Clinton's advice to give more attention to blue-collar white voters, widely credited for giving Trump his win.

Chozick's piercing humor enlivens the book. She shows the satiric power of Evelyn Waugh with her stories about the fatuous dithering of the Clinton campaign. The laughter hurts with the realization that the joke was on the country when Trump took the election.

Chozick's intense relationship with Clinton ranges from deep admiration to exasperation. At the end, Chozick regrets that Clinton probably had come to hate her.

The book closes with Clinton waiting at the luxurious Peninsula Hotel on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue for her victory to be proclaimed. The hotel is within sight of Trump Tower.

A victory celebration was scheduled at the Javits Center across Manhattan. But the confetti never fell, and Clinton never gave the speech she had written to her mother, Dorothy.

Chozick also fell into despair. The book finishes with the devastated reporter walking on the morning after through Manhattan's desolate streets  to The New York Times building, where other reporters had written the front page story about the election's finale.

Instead, Chozick wrote this book, part Hunter S. Thompon, part Alexis de Tocqueville and part Nora Ephron.

 

 

 

 

 

Jimmy Breslin, Pete Hamill and the rise/fall of New York

Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill's glory days as New York newspaper columnists coincided with dark days for the city.

High crime. A bankrupt municipal government. Deteriorating infrastructure and public services. Migration of business and population.

The HBO documentary on Breslin and Hamill, which aired Monday night, touches on events of the city's downward spiral, mainly through Breslin's work.

For all of its troubles, New York was an exciting place for new music, art, literature and sexual and social experimentation. The city was packed with exotic small businesses. Each block was electric with adventure. The city had a vibrant middle class of workers, who read the tabloids that published Breslin and Hamill.

The documentary juxtaposed two photos. One from several decades ago showed New Yorkers on a subway car, all of them immersed in tabloid newspapers. The other, from today, shows subway riders transfixed by their smartphones.

These days, a billionaire makes news by buying an apartment on Central Park for $243 million. Small shops, and big ones, are squeezed out by high rents.

On a once lively Westside area now called billionaires row, residential towers blot out the sun and stars. The hulking monoliths stand empty most of the time. Their owners are Arab oil titans or Russian oligarchs who don't actually live in Manhattan.

The documentary was OK, if predictable. The usual array of talking heads, making unoriginal points.  Snippets from Breslin's greatest hitts, which showed that he was a greater writer and journalist than Hamill. I loved Hamill's memoir, "A Drinking Life," but his newspaper work was overwrought. Breslin displays a truer sense of language.

In Hamill's corner, photos of the glamorous women he dated, including Jacqueline Onassis. A few shots of Hamill's battle for control of the New York Post. A mention of Rupert Murdoch taking the Post off the scrap heap, but no discussion of his turning the once liberal newspaper into a right-wing print version of Fox News.

Interviews with Breslin and Hamill shot before Breslin's death in 2017 captured the devastation of aging.

The documentary ended with the fact that The New York Daily News, which once employed Hamill and Breslin, has gone from 400 employees to 45. Gloria Steinem and others pushed the unconvincing argument that journalism like Breslin's will survive in different forms.

That was taped before several digital web sites announced massive layoffs.

Breslin and Hamill reached a mass readership. Now, those people on their cellphones find a disparate clash of voices. Yet the digital revenues are controlled by Google, Facebook and Amazon.

The city is much richer today, and much poorer.

I wish someone would do a documentary in which Breslin's columns are read, like poetry, or the Gettysburg Address.

 

 

 

 

Terry Teachout, Ben Brantley swing their laptops at Broadway revival of "True West"

The Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout and The New York Times' Ben Brantley trained their big guns Friday on the Broadway revival of Sam Shephard's "True West."

Like David Rabe's "Hurlyburly,"" Shepard's kichen-table rumble between two brothers is a  career showpiece for macho actors.

Over the years, Tommy Lee Jones, Peter Coyote, Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Gary Sinese and Chad Smith have flung their acting chops at the voluble play.

John C. Reilly and Philip Seymour Hoffman starred in the original Broadway production, switching roles between the emerging playwright Austin and his destructive alcoholic brother, Lee.

Now, Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano notch the play on their career highlight board. In a production photo, a leering Hawke as Lee looks as if he's swallowed a large swath of scenery. Dano appears more subdued.

As usual in the Brantley-Teachout faceoffs, Brantley was more enthusiastic about the Roundabout Theater Co. production, directed by James MacDonald at the American Airlines Theater.

Teachout finds the play seriously flawed after the first act, but recommends the production to those who want to immerse themselves in Hawke and Dano's fevered acting.

While Teachout faults Hawke for over-emoting and taking too much pleasure in the role, he praises Dano for what he views as a more subtle performance.

In contrast with Teachout, Brantley sees both performances as electric and the play as a classic worthy of Eugene O'Neill. While Brantley lauds Hawke's portrayal of the malevolent Lee, he sees Dano as not quite achieving full emotional intensity.

With Hawke and Dano starring, the production likely will be a hit, if not a runaway smash like Aaron Sorkin's "To Kill a Mockingbird." It's shaping up as a good year on Broadway for drama.

Farewell, Reggie Young

Reggie Young's distinctive guitar licks propelled many songs into hits.

Young, who felt at home in Memphis and Nashville, died last week at age 82, according to a New York Times obituary.

From Chip Momans' American Sound Studio in Memphis to Nashville's Music Row, Young created combinations of notes that accented songwriters' melodies and gave deeper meaning to lyrics.

Young's simple but effective runs were the glue on hits ranging from The Box Tops' "The Letter" to Elvis Presley's "Suspicious Minds" and Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man."

After Momans' studio closed, Young moved to Nashville, where he played on country-flavored hits like Waylon Jennings "Luckenback Texas" and Willie Nelson's "You Were Always on My Mind." He also gave the signature intro to Billy Swan's "I Can Help," a slice of music that combines rock, jazz and the blues in an other-worldly spin.

He also played with several bands, including the Bill Black Combo, formed by Elvis' former bass player. The band toured with the Beatles on their 1964 American tour. Young said he gave Harrison tips on playing the blues, according to the Times. Perhaps the mentoring was reciprocal: Young played sitar on several recordings.

A master of a variety of styles, from Southern "chicken picking" to bluesy runs, Young was "a cross between B.B. King and Chet Atkins," he said in an interview. The many streams of Southern music flowed through his guitar.

 

 

Farewell, Russell Baker

Russell Baker in his newspaper memoir "The Good Times" remembers walking through London to cover Queen Elizabeth's coronation, wearing a top hat and tails and carrying his lunch in a paper bag.

Baker, who died Monday at age 93 after a fall at his home in Leesburg, Va., knew the full range of human experience. Through his New York Times column and classic memoirs, Baker chronicled the American century. While he wrote numerous books, his daily newspaper columns define his career. He began "The Observer" in 1962 in a bountiful era of New York newspapers and ended it in 1998 at the dawn of the Internet.

Growing up in rural Virginia during the Depression, Baker never lost his sense of boyhood wonder. A master of American language - he joked that his short sentences, in contrast to The Times' orotund style, made him a humorist - he also displayed a classical elegance. He was a natural American aristocrat.

He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979 for his column and another Pulitzer in 1993 for his autobiography "Growing Up," in which he vividly recalled his boyhood during the Depression in rural Virginia. In "The Good Times," he joyfully remembered his career as a young reporter, especially his days as the London correspondent for The Baltimore Sun, an experience unimaginable these days.

After leaving the Times, like Joe DiMaggio saying farewell at the top of his game, Baker enjoyed a second career as the host of "Masterpiece Theater" on public television. He also wrote incisive literary criticism for The New York Review of Books and carried out other projects, including a libretto.

He never lost his pride that he could write fast. He was a newspaper man.