Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: John Updike on Ted Williams: A Library of America Special Publication

by John Updike

On September 28, 1960-a day that will live forever in the hearts of fans-Red Sox slugger Ted Williams stepped up to the plate for his last at-bat in Fenway Park. Seizing the occasion, he belted a solo home run- a storybook ending to a storied career. In the stands that afternoon was 28-year-old John Updike, inspired by the moment to make his lone venture into the field of sports reporting. More than just a matchless account of that fabled final game, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu is a brilliant evocation of Williams' competitive spirit, an intensity of dedication that still "crowds the throat with joy."
Now, on the 50th anniversary of the dramatic exit of baseball's greatest hitter, The Library of America presents a commemorative edition of Hub Fans, prepared by the author just months before his death. To the classic final version of the essay, long out-of- print, Updike added an autobiographical preface and a substantial new afterword. Here is a baseball book for the ages, a fan's notes of the very highest order.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction, Essays, History, Biography

64 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

John Hoyer Updike was an American writer. Updike's most famous work is his Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and Rabbit Remembered). Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest both won Pulitzer Prizes for Updike. Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class," Updike is well known for his careful craftsmanship and prolific writing, having published 22 novels and more than a dozen short story collections as well as poetry, literary criticism and children's books. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems have appeared in The New Yorker since the 1950s. His works often explore sex, faith, and death, and their inter-relationships.

He died of lung cancer at age 76.

Reviews

[Lee Klein]

Originally a New Yorker article on Ted Williams's last game, this includes a few instances of elevation, particularly descriptions of home runs including Williams's last at-bat, and worthy, graceful, lucid, imagination-activating perceptions. But, overall, at most, it's a great small gift or stocking stuffer for the literate baseball fan in your life.

Got it because of the lines below from Updike's Rabbit Redux that struck me as some damn fine description and I figured an extended standalone piece on baseball would not disappoint. (I photographed the page and texted it to an old friend who watches every Yankee game, so I had the quotation handy on my phone.)

"The spaced dance of the men in white fails to enchant, the code beneath the staccato spurts of distant motion refuses to yield its meaning. Through basketball was his sport, Rabbit remembers the grandeur of all that grass, the excited perilous feeling when a high fly was hoisted your way, the homing-on on the expanding dot, the leathery smack of the catch, the formalized nonchalance of the heads-down trot in toward the bench, the ritual flips and shrugs and the nervous courtesies of the batter's box. There was a beauty here bigger than the hurtling beauty of basketball, a beauty refined from country pastures, a game of solitariness, of waiting, waiting for the pitcher to complete his gaze toward first base and throw his lightning, a game whose very taste, of spit and dust and grass and sweat and leather and sun, was America."

[Brian]

Perhaps the earliest example of what Tom Wolfe came to label as the New Journalism, this is the story of Ted Williams's last game played at Fenway Park. No one to my knowledge has written a better essay on the complexity of Williams's relationship to the fans and the writers who covered him, or his singular striving to be the best hitter the game has ever seen.

[A.J. Howard]

This is a standalone version of the essay that Updike wrote on Ted Williams last game in Fenway Park that appeared in the New Yorker in October 1960. I read this in the New Yorker Baseball Digital Anthology a couple years back. This essay might be the Sgt. Peppers of sportswriting. It was the announcement that a previously trivialized form of popular culture (sportswriting/rock music) had to be taken seriously as a medium for works which could be seen as pieces of art. I'm not dismissing sports journalism written before that, some of which is quite fine. But even the greatest sportswriters, while they may not have written down to the genre, at least let the expected forms of the genre dictate their writing. Here, Updike trims the fat. There's none of that Grantland Rice style of inserting artificial poignancy through flowery rhetoric and overbearing metaphor. This was just a great writer writing about baseball, as that was all the embellishment you needed. It's not really surprising that Roger Angell, perhaps the dean of modern sportswriting, has acknowledged this essays influence on his own career.

The essay also has one of my favorite paragraphs in nonfiction prose. Near the end of the article, Updike describes how Williams homers in what is surely his last at bat.

Like a feather caught in a vortex, Williams ran around the square of the bases at the center of our beseeching screaming. He ran as he always ran out home runs - hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were some sort of rain to get out of. He didn't tip his cap. Though we humped, wept, and chanted "We want Ted" for minutes after he hit the dugout, he did not come bac. Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement, into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortally is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he never had and did not now.

And then the money line:

Gods do not answer letters.

Great stuff. One of my five favorite essays. Highly recommended.

[Jeremy]

It is a rare privilege when a writer of Updike's caliber is moved to write about sport, since sport seldom piques the interest of great writers.

That being, baseball had a powerful hold over the imagination of 20th century America. Updike, Roth, and Delillo all take on the sport in their writing at one time or another. Paul Simon once sang: "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you?" It would be unthinkable to us in 2023 that Taylor Swift would deign to write a song about Shohei Ohtani (tentative title: Sho' Me You Care).

I admit I didn't learn anything new about Williams, but given how celebrated this definitive essay was in its time, I have to think this was a foundational text that countless other sportswriters pulled from.

Truly an essential read for any literate ball fan. Updike perfectly captures the complex legend of Teddy Ballgame. So glad someone lent me this slim little volume.

[William Haverinen]

Library of America published a 46 page hard cover edition of my favorite work of John Updike. This is my favorite short story of this short story master. His prose sparkles, jumps off the page for me, creating emotions like few other authors.
And, this story honors a boyhood hero. So this book stands in a special place for me. Thank you LOA for the hard cover edition.

[michal k-c]

Nice little rumination on late style in sports, which is apparently very similar to late style in art and writing. Updike, a real fan, endows these silly little children’s games with the real-world weight that so many of the viewers feel.

[Chelsea]

God, I love this essay. I read it for the first time years ago for a class in a book simply called Baseball (what are the odds that link takes you to the right one?), and it made me fall madly in love with not only Updike, but Ted Williams.

This is a great format, and though as a reader I'm not supposed to say this, the cover is fantastic. The footnotes are included (which are a good portion of the appeal, though they are now out of date), as is an introduction Updike wrote the year he died, and the obituary he wrote when Williams died.

[Woody Chandler]

The Library of America had this on sale recently, along with some other pieces of sports writing & so I bought it for a re-read. I had read the original piece many years ago in an anthology of BOSOX writing at a time when my interest in baseball was renewed after being a huge fan as a kid. Now, I am less interested again. This edition came with both a Preface & an Afterword, both by my fellow Pennsylvanian, John Updike.

He grew up in Shillington, which is about 40 miles northeast of me, on Rte. 222, heading towards Reading. I never got to meet him, but my late Pops had him sign a copy of his then-latest book for me during an appearance at our local Borders. It remains a prized piece of my collection.

[Henry Fuhrmann]

When I found myself connecting through Boston during a business trip to Providence, I was able to squeeze in a visit to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox host the Houston Astros. The famous Updike story about Ted Williams' last game was the perfect reading for my train trip between the two cities. The piece originally ran in the New Yorker in the issue of Oct. 20, 1960. It shows the author to be a skilled observer and storyteller even at this early juncture, at age 28. My Library of America edition includes a lovely preface and an afterword that Updike wrote only a few months before his death. (And about my stop at Fenway: The Sox won, 6-5, notching their 98th win on their way to an eventual World Series title.)

[Matthew Eisenberg]

Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu is a very brief review of Ted Williams' career and last game. If you're a baseball fan, you'll like this book. Ted Williams is a towering and captivating (now) historical figure, and there are some superbly written sentences and paragraphs, though my overarching impression of John Updike's writing is that he was writing like someone who really really wanted to be a writer for the New Yorker. But if you're a baseball fan, Ted Williams is worth reading about. And this book, which takes almost no time to read, is worth the little time it takes.

[James Diamond]

What happens when you marry one of the great American writers of fiction with a classic American pastime and a sports legend? You get this fantastic essay about the end of a career. Not sure if it’s a 4 or a 5, might be too short to get a 5 for a book. It’s really a magazine essay that has been preserved for eternity by putting it out in book form. And there’s nothing wrong with that in the slightest.

[Sanjuro]

A beautiful book. Can be read easily in one sitting, and really should be. Written by Updike about attending Ted Williams' final game in 1960, the book simultaneously demonstrates the greatness of baseball, Ted Williams, and sports writing when it's done well. In fact, and this is a widely held opinion, this essay is easily one of the greatest pieces of sports writing America has seen.

[Judith Squires]

Probably the shortest book on my list, but also one of the best. Originally an article in the New Yorker, it is a tribute to Ted William's last game. Updike of course, is letter perfect and I'll just quote the great Boston sportswriter, Dan Shaughnessy: "The greatest writer, in the greatest ballpark, on the greatest hitter who ever lived."

[Chase K]

This was a gift from my stepfather Ed, a lifelong baseball fanatic and reporter. He said that since I’m into baseball now, that I need to read the greatest baseball essay ever written. He was not wrong! This is a poignant explanation or Ted Williams’ storied career. A must read if you’re a baseball fan.

[Barbara]

This is a nice little book that contains an essay that originally appeared in The New Yorker in October 1960. John Updike was a 28 year old in the stands of Fenway Park on September 28, 1960, the day that famous Red Sox Ted Williams made his last at-bat appearance at Fenway.

[Nicholas Hudson]

Revised, in my opinion for the worse, from the essay originally published in The New Yorker. Still great, but the last lines are not nearly as powerful to me.

The original is probably the greatest essay I've read.

[Collie]

I was gifted this by a lovely couple, friends of my mother, who were clearing out their shelves as they downsized away from their Maine farmhouse to a Boston studio. It's a rare pleasure to read a book about a thing I love by a master of language.

[Clayton Brannon]

Excellent short read. Hate to call this a book that I have read. More like a magazine article. Does not qualify as a short story.

[Ted]

This has got to be the greatest baseball essay ever written.

[Andrew Sutherland]

Absolutely stunning! Updike's account of Ted Williams' final game is absolutely beautiful and poetic. It's writing like this that keeps my passion for the game of baseball alive.

[Keenan Bartlett]

Excellent essay. Highly recommended for anyone passionate about baseball or just appreciates incredible writing.

[Lynne]

Well-written (of course) essay on Ted Williams' last game. Short and worth the read.

[Craig Martel]

A favorite topic written by a master.

[Bob Peru]

probably the greatest piece of sports writing ever.

[carol]

Perfect.

[Dave M]

"Ted took his time leaving this world, and he's not quite out of it yet." The drollest obituary line, most macabre footnote ever. You might say Ted's playing pickle for eternity. Not so fungo.

[Brian Budzynski]

A great piece of sports journalism, with a style a bit leaner than you ordinarily get from Updike. Wonderful altogether.

[Jack Silbert]

Maybe I'm getting a little better at reading slim volumes based on essays when I'm supposed to. In spring 2009, I picked up a copy of Augie Wren's Christmas Storyby Paul Auster at a library used-book sale. I intended to read it when the holidays rolled around—but I forgot. So I had to wait another year.

WIth Hub Fans…, I bought it at the end of the 2010 baseball season, which was the 50th anniversary of Ted Williams' final game, the event commemorated in this lovely book. Reading it immediately might've been the thing to do, but, you know, I have quite the on-deck circle.

But, looking for something new to read earlier this week, I'm very glad this caught my eye. We're getting into that Bart Giamatti baseball-is-designed-to-break-your-heart time of year, and that added poignance—and perhaps that I'm now the exact age that Williams was in this book—really made for an ideal reading experience.

As a kid baseball fan, all I really knew of Hall of Famer Ted Williams is that he was perhaps the greatest hitter who ever lived. The last man to hit .400. That's all you need to know as a kid. (And perhaps all you need to know as an adult, but that's another essay for another time.) As an adult baseball fan, I learned another fact: Williams was kind of a jerk. And then the final fact: He was cryogenically frozen and his head was chopped off.

This book, though really just an expanded essay, fills in a lot of holes. For example, it turns out Williams was always a jerk. And yet, as you've no doubt experienced, life is more complicated than that. Updike sheds light on Williams' complex relationship with the fans and particularly the media. (It was a vicious cycle where they were unkind to him, he was brusque with them, so they were unkind to him, and so on.) And my kids'-sports background never let me know how awful the Red Sox were in Williams' final years. His final game, with a lineup filled with minor-league call-ups, is played in front of a mostly empty Fenway Park. It puts everything in a melancholy context, and really humanized Williams for me.

As Bill Bradley would later inspire the young John McPhee (A Sense of Where You Are), Williams brought out the best in the 28-year-old Updike. It's a beautifully written essay. Though Updike was clearly a fan, he never gushes. It's spare, clean writing, with just enough heart, and art, to turn it into something wonderful. You really feel like you're sitting next to Updike at the ballpark on an chill, overcast September day, hoping against hope that something momentous will happen.

In this handsome reissue, Updike's 1960 New Yorker essay is paired with a second essay, culled from two Williams profiles Updike later wrote: for Sport magazine in 1986, and a New York Times obit from 2002. So first we get Williams' baseball death and then his actual one—though Williams might have argued which was more crucial. Updike, too, was older, and it makes for a nice contrast.

Indeed, Updike's January 2009 preface to the book is, I believe, his final published writing—he died that same month. So mortality adds yet another level to the original essay. But we can always return to that moment from a half-century earlier: a man, a ballpark, and the fitting end of a quest for perfection.

[Pam]

http://iwriteinbooks.wordpress.com/20...
Both the sports nut and the avid literature fan in me hesitate to write this post. I suppose, every now and then, I should open myself up to a little bit of friendly confession, though. The confession is as follows.

On December 31st, my son and I went to visit The Blue Elephant Bookshop. Fabulous little place where I usually find a good philosophy book or new novel. On the last day of 2010, however, while paying for a Biscuit book for Kai, I spotted something on the display shelf at the front counter that I had never seen before.

It was a teensy, tiny little volume by John Updike on Ted Williams. Updike has long been one of my favorite modern writers and, let’s just say, I once ran the New York Marathon, head to toe in Red Sox gear. I also have a nearly seven year old whippet mix, Teddy. Oh, yes, that sure is Teddy for Ted Williams.

I had no idea what to expect having read absolutely none of Updike’s nonfiction. I did not, however, expect it to be terrible. For once, I managed to assume correctly, and loved it wholeheartedly. I won’t go into the nitty gritty details of why “The Kid” is so great because I gather that my target readership isn’t all that interested in a complete rehashing of John’s statistics.

I will say that this is a terrifically beautiful ode to one of my hometown heroes like nothing I’ve ever read. Of course, it’s put together by one of my home country‘s most celebrated and prolific writers so I shouldn’t be too stunned by the eloquence or detail in the tiny book. If you are from New England, enjoy sports or like Updike, you’ll be pleased on any of the above accounts.

[Ed]

Thanks dad! It's funny reading the reviews on the back cover, nearly all by sports writers, nearly all claiming Updike changed with this one essay the way sports writers write. Of course, this essay appeared in 1960, so if this is true I didn't get the 'before' picture. But looking at the sports columns that I regularly visit, both in the Star Tribune and on ESPN.com, there is evidence all over the place. The unfortunate thing, of course, is that this means lesser writers are trying almost all the time to write equally moving and poignant columns mostly about lesser achievements by lesser athletes. I have seen one or two really embarrassing examples of this in the last year or so...and now I know why. But it's good that they are trying!

I really liked it, and Updike's obit of Ted Williams as well (though he could have left the fawning on Barry Bonds out of it). I only give it 4 stars instead of 5 because it's too short! Just like the best baseball games I've watched...and like life...it's too bad that it has to end. I could read writing like this on this topic for ever and ever.

Makes me look even more forward to Mike Royko's articles on Chicago baseball which I'm sure I will encounter when I start his collections soon (sooner now!).