Studs Terkel died yesterday 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.”
Based on Terkel’s many books of oral history on myriad themes, I think we would have been a natural if hed 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 was taken from Ken Burns’ 1995 documentary on baseball. The astute observer will recognize the music as also appearing in Eight Men Out.
is available on Amazon.com,
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