LETTERS FROM HOME: HERO WORSHIP OR LOOKING FOR BEN HOGAN IN HEAVEN

Feb. 24, 2000

Dear Patty,

Galway Kinnell never uses similes. Nothing is really like anything else, he says, except everything is exactly the same at its essence.

I wrote him a letter long ago, telling him how important his poetry had been to me. He was silent, like a god.

As a neophyte sports writer, I aspired to assemble strings of words as well as the late Jim Murray. He was simile central. He wrote so colorfully you couldn't wait to see what might await in the next sentence.

"Willie Mays' glove is where triples go to die," he wrote.

But Murray was surefooted on a high wire no one else could walk. He is blamed for ruining a generation of sports writers me included who tried to emulate his style, idealized him without understanding how to arrive at the truths he landed on our doorsteps.

One writer said Murray gave the impression of covering the ballet from the perspective of the usher.

Watching Willie Shoemaker ride a horse "was like watching Gene Kelly dance or Gaugin paint," Murray wrote. "It was art. You had the feeling he could win the Kentucky Derby on a Brahma bull."

He lacked ego, was flush with wit and ascerbicism. Nearly blind baseball legend Jackie Robinson greeted Murray one day with the words, "Oh Jim, I wish I could see you again."

"No Jackie, I wish we could see you again," Murray answered.

In reaction to a series of deaths at the Indy 500, he miffed the racing establishment by beginning a column, "Gentlemen, start your coffins."

Murray won a Pulitzer Prize, an honor spared all but four sports writers. Again his humility came through. "Correctly quoting Tommy Lasorda shouldn't merit a Pulitzer Prize," he said.

With the exception of Ben Hogan, Murray didn't worship jocks. If Jim gets to heaven and Hogan isn't there, he's not staying, Murray's wife predicted.

Like Robinson, Murray eventually lost his eyesight. But he kept writing.

"Columns are like riding a tiger," he said. "You'd like to get off but you have no idea how."

Worshipping any human is no good. I once made the mistake of thinking I might love a writer just because I loved her newspaper column. I especially liked the columns that were letters to her estranged, alcoholic father, letters she acknowledged he'd probably never read.

We met and had two dates. On the first she made spaghetti and dressed up in a red leather jacket to fall asleep at a stunning performance of Lily Tomlin's "The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe."

When we emerged from the show we discovered I'd parked in a garage that had already closed for the night. Since I lived an hour away, she invited me to sleep in her spare bedroom and congratulated me on the garage trick.

On the second date we went to Point Reyes National Seashore, where she said something offhandedly sarcastic about people who think a certain way. Wanting to be honest, I told her I often think that way. Suddenly we had trouble talking to each other, and she discovered she needed to get home to work on her book that was years overdue.

Afterward I concluded that she avoided even that slight amount of disharmony because she came from an alcoholic family. Now I realize my idealization of her would not allow her to be who she was.

All the faults that don't fit our ideal are just superficial differences. No one is like anyone else but all of us are the same at our essence.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.