SubscribeLest we forget: Studs Terkel
Studs Terkel died on October 31 at the age of 96.
He never wrote a baseball book (as far as I’m aware), but Stud Terkel was always a favorite of mine, long before he appeared as sportswriter Huey Fullerton in John Sayle’s Eight Men Out. His acting style might not have been Oscar material, but he contributed a certain authenticity and charm to the film.
In one memorable scene, after his character has has published his story on the corruption in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, Sayles, as Ring Lardner, reads an unidentified editorial (based on one from The Sporting News) lambasting Fullerton (Terkel) for besmirching the reputations of the fine, upstanding White Sox players when he should be aiming his pencil at the “long-nosed, thick-lipped… gamblers” (originally “a lot of dirty, long-nosed, thick-lipped and strong-smelling gamblers”) that threaten to ruin the game. To which Terkel replies, “Makes you proud to be a sportswriter.”
Arnold Rothstein didn’t do the Jewish people any favor for being the bankroll behind the whole sordid affair. Nor did former championship featherweight boxer Abe Attell — a member of both the National and International Jewish Hall of Fame — who purportedly served as a go-between for Rothstein with the eight members of the Sox who were “dirty.” The Sporting News might have been the “bible of baseball” but it was not the most progressive of publications. For more, read David Pietrusza’s excellent biography, Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series.)
But back to Terkel…
Based on his oral histories on myriad themes (Working, Hard Times, The Good War, among others), I think he would have been a natural if he’d decided to do one on the national pastime. Add him to the list of people I waited too long to try to interview, along with Eliot Asinof and Leonard Koppett.
The clip below comes from Ken Burns’ 1995 documentary on baseball. The astute observer will recognize the music as also appearing in Eight Men Out.
Here’s a link to a 2006 interview he gave to the L.A. Jewish Journal, in which he discussed his Jewish parents.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/arts/article/q_a_with_studs_terkel_20060303/