Roger Angell wrote long, long after it was fashionable to do so. Ray Didinger spoke evenly, even as hot takes became all the rage.
You wanna call them dinosaurs, fine; have at it. I choose to believe that is true only in the sense that they have left (or are about to leave) enormous footprints on the media landscape, footprints that will not soon be erased.
Angell, one of the foremost baseball writers ever, died recently at 101. Didinger, one of the foremost NFL chroniclers ever, will retire Sunday at age 75, after one final show on the Philadelphia radio station WIP with his long-time on-air partner, Glen Macnow.
I crossed paths with Angell only once, and fleetingly at that. One Opening Day in the early ‘80s, we both happened to be in the cramped media-relations office in Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium to claim our credentials from a chain-smoking woman named Helen. We were far from the only people to have invaded her space that day, of course, and she was terse as she went about her duties.
Then Angell gave his name.
Her demeanor immediately changed. There was awe in her voice as she filled out his pass, and rightfully so. By then he had been writing for the New Yorker for over two decades, providing dispatches that were routinely 10,000 words in length, or more. There are deep dives, and then there are Acapulco cliff dives. Roger’s work fell into the latter category, as he was blessed with time and space, two commodities that these days are in short supply. Faced with a deadline that could be described as all the time and never, sportswriters (those few who remain, anyway) must deliver more and more content, at greater and greater speed.
Angell could afford to be thorough and deliberate, as his work often appeared weeks or months after the fact. Few begrudged him that, given the depth, style and brilliance he displayed, despite becoming a baseball writer relatively late in life; he was 41 when he assumed that responsibility, and thus some 60 years on the job. He was still blogging late in life, still providing thoughtful pieces on baseball and other topics, as he showed in a 2014 piece about aging entitled “This Old Man.”
New Yorker editor David Remnick, in his remembrance of Roger, writes that as Joe Torre made some historical point or other while talking with reporters during his tenure as Yankees manager, more than once he would turn to Angell and say, “Roger, am I getting that right?”
It was much the same with Didinger, who during his 53-year career wrote for the Bulletin and Daily News before making the jump to the electronic side (with a stopoff at NFL Films in between); his most recent work has appeared not only on ‘IP but a TV station, NBC Sports Philadelphia. He was a torturously slow writer, routinely remaining in press boxes long after everyone else had departed following NFL games. But he always seemed to get it right and say it right, two qualities he has brought to his radio/TV duties. He sits there with his notes before him and makes his points succinctly and with nary a hint of bombast, a refreshing twist in this day and age.
As a result he has grown so beloved that he has earned a hip nickname, “Ray Diddy,” which I find amusing, since Ray, ever so comfortable in his own skin (not to mention his khakis and button-down shirts), is decidedly un-hip. I mean, get this – the guy doesn’t even own a cellphone. No matter – it works for him. So too does his uncommon decency, so rare for so many people in all walks of life, much less a high-profile media personality.
Sheil Kapadia of The Athletic did unearth video of Ray flashing anger at a Boston-area reporter who had trashed Eagles fans in the run-up to Super Bowl 52. Other than that, he is remarkably even-tempered – though I will admit that he once grew frustrated with me.
I blame Amtrak.
I wanted to talk to him at one point in the early 2000s for a book I was working on about the Sixers’ 1982-83 championship team, since Ray had covered that club as a Daily News columnist. So I called him as I was traveling by train from Lancaster to Philadelphia for an Eagles practice.
We chatted a bit. Then the connection dropped.
I hit him back. We talked some more, before the line went dead again. So once more I called him.
“Yes,” he said, with a certain edge in his voice.
It was tantamount to a stern rebuke, the kind of thing you might hear from your dad if you broke curfew as a teenager. And honestly, I felt awful, but we worked through it. He told me about the many ways he tried to get Moses Malone to talk to him for a feature story in ‘82-83. How Ray went through the team and Moses’ agent, Lee Fentress, in an attempt to broker an interview, without success. Finally the Daily News’ late, great beat writer, Phil Jasner, suggested Ray go on the road with the team, in the hope of catching Moses during some down time.
That didn’t work, either, so finally Ray just sat down and wrote the piece, having spoken with several others about Moses. And it won a Keystone Press Award.
“I guess that tells you interviews are overrated,” Ray told me at the time.
The day of the parade celebrating the Sixers’ title, Ray wracked his brain as he drove downtown: What, possibly, could he write about the team that hadn’t already been written? It was then that it dawned on him to craft a column based on the play “That Championship Season,” about the 20-year reunion of a title-winning high school basketball team. Ray’s execution turned out to be as good as his idea. He asked various players and coaches what they thought the team members would be doing two decades hence.
The story’s kicker came courtesy of backup center Mark McNamara, who was quizzed about Moses’ future.
“In 20 years?” McNamara told Ray. “He’ll still be leading the NBA in rebounding.”
(For the record, Moses did last until 1994-95, though the last of his six rebounding titles came in ‘84-85. Still a good line, though.)
So now here we are, not quite 40 years later, bidding good-bye to Ray and RIP to Roger. Angell’s last words, according to Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, were to ask his wife for the Mets score. (Years before Angell had shown Verducci his gravesite.)
Thorough to the last. Sounds about right.
Ray, knock on wood, is not going away any time soon. His play “Tommy and Me,” about his long relationship with Tommy McDonald, the late Eagles Hall of Famer, will be performed Aug. 18-20 in the Hershey Theatre.
The work is the thing. The work is always the thing. Journalists are always taught that the story is not about them, but in many ways it’s unavoidable. The approach, the style, the word choice and, well, just the caring illuminate who they are and what they’re about. So it is with these two giants, who leave behind footprints at which we can all marvel, well after the fact.