The world lost one of its greatest writers when Ray Bradbury passed away Tuesday at the age of 91.
The author of such sci-fi classics as Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, and The Martian Chronicles, among many others, got his start with short stories such as “The Big Black and White Game,” which appeared in The American Mercury in 1945. The story, which considers an exhibition game between the black staff of a hotel somewhere presumably in the South and its white patrons, seems somewhat ahead of its time.
It’s amusing to see that Bradbury was so new on the literary scene then, his name didn’t even appear on the cover of the publication. The author’s squib noted that Bradbury, “currently at work on his first novel, has been represented in anthologies of weird and unusual tales. This is his first appearance in The American Mercury.”
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I’ve been thinking about Bradbury constantly since his death yesterday. Thank you for reminding me of this short story. I quoted this line in the piece I wrote about my meeting with him when I was a kid:
“My life has always been writing. I love libraries, I love bookstores. I love writing and I can’t stop. So until God hits me with a baseball bat, I won’t lie down.”
He was a helluva writer and a man.
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