Baseball Toaster: The Griddle : In memoriam: Mark Harris

Rank	Team	W	L	PCT	Division
1	Chicago Cubs	82	50	.621	C1
2	Philadelphia	73	59	.553	E1
3	Arizona	68	64	.515	W1
4	Milwaukee	77	55	.583	C2
5T	St. Louis	73	60	.549	C3
5T	New York Mets	73	60	.549	E2
7	Florida	67	65	.508	E3
8	Houston	66	66	.5	C4
9	Los Angeles Dodgers	65	67	.492	W2
10	Colorado	62	71	.466	W3
11	San Francisco	58	73	.443	W4
12T	Cincinnati	58	74	.439	C5
12T	Atlanta	58	74	.439	E4
14	Pittsburgh	57	75	.432	C6
15	San Diego	50	82	.379	W5
16	Washington	47	85	.356	E5

American League

Rank	Team	W	L	PCT	Division
1	Los Angeles Angels	80	51	.611	W1
2	Tampa Bay	79	51	.608	E1
3	Chicago White Sox	76	56	.576	C1
4	Boston	76	55	.58	E2
5	Minnesota	74	58	.561	C2
6	New York Yankees	70	61	.534	E3
7	Toronto	68	63	.519	E4
8T	Texas	65	68	.489	W2
8T	Cleveland	64	67	.489	C3
10	Detroit	64	68	.485	C4
11	Baltimore	62	70	.47	E5
12	Oakland	60	72	.455	W3
13	Kansas City	56	76	.424	C5
14	Seattle	50	82	.379	W4

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In memoriam: Mark Harris

2007-06-04 23:47

by Bob Timmermann

Author Mark Harris passed away last Wednesday in Goleta, California at age 84. Harris, who was born Mark Harris Finkelstein, wrote several novels including a famous series of books about a pitcher named Henry Wiggen.

They were:

The Southpaw

Bang the Drum Slowly

A Ticket for a Seamstitch

And It Looked Like For Ever

While I am not an expert on baseball fiction, I loved Harris's novels about Henry "Arthur" Wiggen. Harris knew that baseball players, with the exception of his fictional catcher Red Traphagen (a college professor after his retirement), were not intellectuals and Henry Wiggen wrote, especially in The Southpaw, like a rookie pitcher not far removed from high school. His language was not precise and his grammar wasn't perfect, but he sounded like a 1950s kid.

Bang the Drum Slowly is the most book of the series as it was made first into a live TV production for CBS in 1956 with Paul Newman as Wiggen and Albert Salmi playing Bruce Pearson, the slow-witted catcher dying of Hodgkin's disease. There was also a film released in 1973 starring Michael Moriarty and Robert DeNiro.

But I prefer The Southpaw, which introduces Henry Wiggen as a high school star. You meet his father, a skilled Sunday pitcher in his town. His girlfriend, and eventual wife, Katie (whose father is an astronomer), and the rest of the New York Mammoths. Besides catchers Traphagen and Pearson, there is manager Dutch Schnell, coach Joe Jaros, and Henry's boyhood idol, pitcher Sad Sam Yale, whose first words to him are "Go f--- yourself." Henry quickly learns that baseball is a business and often a cruel one. The novel also touches on interracial relations (the book was written in 1953), the Korean War, and the role of the media in covering baseball.

The Southpaw is not all that easy to find in libraries now, but it is well worth the hunt.

Also David Davis at LA Observed has some more info on Harris and a link to a Daniel Okrent piece about Harris.

Comments

2007-06-05 03:59:16

1. The Mick 536

Best baseball movie ever. Far down for some on some film devotees my-fav-DeNiro-list. Not on mine. I cry every time I see it. Book brings tears, too. All his books have a moral message. Baseball just provides the theatre.

And he was a Saul Bellow scholar.

Lost Vonnegut, the artists who drew BC and the Wizard of Yid, and Clete Boyer. Tough year.

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