It’s an odd thing, suggesting to friends books they ought to write. I remember my last year on the A’s beat, covering the team for the San Francisco Chronicle, being in a bar somewhere in the Midwest (Cleveland?) and telling my opposite number on the beat, Howard Bryant of the San Jose Mercury News, that I for one would love to see him do a book talking about what reading Baldwin meant to him. He and I both loved Baldwin, though obviously came at him from different directions.
Howard nodded, intrigued, but of course had other ideas in mind. He didn’t need tips from anyone on setting about turning ambition and rigorous thinking into a highly respected body of work. I thought of that moment in the bar twenty-two years ago today when I read Howard’s incandescent ESPN piece, “The reality of Black pain is breaking American sports’ status quo.”
“Underneath it all — the passive-aggressive questions about what walking out will prove, how people will never, ever watch the NBA again — is threat, questions less in search of illumination but designed to diminish the players, to question their authenticity and disavow them of any thought of self-determination,” Howard writes. “There is no citizenship beneath their tank tops, and even less humanity. You’re here to entertain us. No, you’re literally here to entertain us. That’s your job.”
Howard and I were on the phone this morning talking about the piece when he had to go–Jim Rome was on the line. I’m sure he’s having a busy day. Howard was always thoughtful and edgy. His is an original voice, needing to be heard–and I’m so glad he scrapped his way to that first book deal, for Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston, and has been scrapping ever since.
But we need more Howard’s. We need more Mary C. Curtis’ (that’s her up above) – journalists who take their years of experience and insight and distill them into book form. That’s why Sarah and I launched a new fellowship this year, the Mary C. Curtis Fellowship for African American journalists specifically wanting to come spend two weeks at our small writers retreat center working on a book proposal.
If you can help us spread the word on the fellowship, that would be great. The deadline is next week: September 1. The horrific news stories out of Kenosha have shown once again how vitally important it is to have more Black voices publishing books from a variety of perspectives. We hope to help in some small, small way.
– Steve Kettmann
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