Wrapping Up 2022
OK, so as we wind down 2022, I asked JoeBlogs editor Larry — please offer some season greetings to Larry in the comments — to choose some of his favorite JoeBlogs reads from this year. I’ve listed a few of them below (unlocked for all to read!), along with some of my own comments, and I’ve added a few other things from this year that are making me happy.
As always, thanks for being a JoeBlogs reader. I’m really looking forward to an amazing 2023 with all sorts of new projects and ideas, plus plenty of bonus stuff from my upcoming book, WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL. I’ll remind you that until the end of the year, you can get an annual subscription to JoeBlogs for 20% off. So that’s fun! Just click the button here:
I Know You From… Somewhere (June 25)
In June, I went to see my friend Alex Edelman perform his amazing show, “Just For Us,” in New York. And I ended up (a) running into celebrities and (b) being reminded of my complete inability to recognize faces. This was also my wife Margo’s favorite piece of 2022; she’s glad other people can now feel her frustration as I wander around life like Mr. Magoo, entirely clueless.
Going Deep on a Dozen Great Pitchers (Feb. 18)
This represents, I hope, one of the big reasons why we have so much fun here in the JoeBlogs community: I’ll wake up one morning and think to myself, “You know, it would be fun for me to look back at 12 great pitchers and see which obscure hitter gave them the most trouble.” And then we all talk about it.
OK, this year I became familiar with Laney Jones, and I just want to introduce you, because she and her husband, Brian (on the drums), are just fantastic. Laney describes her style as “psych folk,” which might make sense to you and might not, I just know she’s fabulous. And she is the only indie star, I have to believe, who will play her fans in chess. I’ve played her. I’m just telling you: Check her out. You’ll want to be on the bandwagon when she becomes a big star. She’s also a huge sports fan, particularly football.
Djokovic, Nadal and the Inevitable End (June 1)
I love writing tennis. I love it so much that, honestly, I can’t even help myself, words just pour out of me a few times a year. I think it’s in part because I play tennis pretty religiously, but also because I think tennis is just a wonderful sport to write, bloodless boxing as they say.
This year, as a special bonus, I did a series called “Ten Who Missed,” where I wrote Baseball 100-style essays about 10 players who, you know, just missed The Baseball 100. I actually did 11, because readers voted for their favorites and left Zack Greinke off the list. There’s no way I was not writing Zack Greinke. … In 2023, by the way, we’ll definitely be doing a series on baseball moments that did not make WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL.
So, let me tell you a bit about how I write. I go at it hard, writing furiously for an extended period of time. And then at some point, I just have to stop, I need a break, I need to watch a couple of YouTube videos or listen to some music or read something or … let me be honest here, I watch YouTube videos. My go-to for months has been Ryan George. The guy’s a machine; he’s got hundreds and hundreds of very funny videos online, including his First Guy series (which is great), his Guys Who Decided Things series (which is also great) and his Pitch Meetings series (which might be the best of all). The Willy Wonka pitch meeting above is pretty representative.
The Chairman of the Board (June 1)
I was talking with Raul Ibañez the other day for an upcoming story and we started talking about chess. Raul loves playing chess, and we’ve often talked about playing each other … and I was trying to explain to him where I am on the game right now. I am as into LEARNING about chess as ever. I have bought a couple of courses, I watch a lot of different chess streamers, I think about the game a lot. But, for the most part, I don’t enjoy playing people. My friend, the brilliant magician Joshua Jay*, offered a great insight about me: He said that’s exactly how I am about magic, too. I love learning magic. I enjoy practicing magic. But I have absolutely no interest in performing magic. He’s right. Anyway, this was a piece about chess and my father.
*I’m just name-dropping like a madman!
Wrong Card, Right Card (July 10)
Speaking of magic — this is the piece I wrote about the late Werner Reich, who was a magician like no other.
A few years ago, when I was writing The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini, I went to a magic convention in Columbus and a wonderful and very funny magician named Stephen Bargatze was performing. He did a trick which ended up with his son, Nate, appearing on stage. Nate is now one of the biggest (and best) comedians in the world; he was not exactly that a few years ago. Few seemed to know him.
The reaction was … muted.
Here he tells that story: He says it happened in Des Moines, so I’m guessing it happened to him more than once. My favorite part of Nate’s set that day in Columbus was when he looked around the room filled with all these magicians — you can probably imagine the scene — and said: “Oh, so this where my Dad was for my childhood.”
Football 101: No. 13, Night Train Lane (Dec. 1)
The Football 101 countdown of the greatest pro football players has been quite the journey. It took me a long time to figure out exactly what I wanted it to look like. At first, I thought it would be just like the Baseball 100, but as I wrote it, that just didn’t feel right to me. It needed its own rhythm. Over the last few months, I feel like I’ve found that rhythm. We’re down to the Top 9 now, which I’ll be publishing weekly leading up to the Super Bowl. This one on Night Train Lane is one of my favorites, too.
Doubling Down on Taylor Swift (Nov. 16)
I look back at this one and think: Did I really spend that many hours trying to get Taylor Swift tickets for my daughter? And the answer is: Yes. Yes, I did.
A few Substack recommendations:
Tommy Tomlinson’s The Writing Shed: Tommy’s writing is always amazing, but you will really want to subscribe in 2023 because his new book about the Westminster Dog Show is coming out soon, and he’ll be offering all sorts of super-fun dog stories. I’ve heard some of them — believe me, you’ll definitely want in.
Molly Knight’s The Long Game: Molly is as good as anybody on baseball, particularly Dodger and Dodger-adjacent baseball, plus she’s very funny and writes about everything from the heart. She’s a beautiful person and my occasional podcast partner and her writing always hits home.
Alan Sepinwall’s What’s Alan Watching: Alan is the villain of the PosCast, we all know that’s his main purpose in life, but apparently he also writes about television. Who knew? He just so happens to be the best television critic going. This Substack is great.
Daniel Drezner’s Drezner’s World: He’s a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, which should mean he’s too smart for a goofball like me, but it’s always fascinating to jump into his mind for a moment, whether it’s to learn about foreign affairs, hear his views on some topic of the moment or just catch his thoughts on what made Andor so good.
I have written too many obituaries in my life. They each take a little bit out of me. This one was for my dear friend Len Dawson.
Speaking of obituaries that took something out of me … I went to Grant Wahl’s memorial in New York a couple weeks ago. It was really beautiful. A bunch of his friends and colleagues took the stage to talk about his kindness and brilliance. I think anytime that a friend dies, you think about mortality and how little time we have, but Grant’s death hit us particularly hard. He was so young. It happened so suddenly. And yet, as more and more people took the stage to talk about how he changed their lives, it became clear that he made a difference in so many people’s lives. And that was inspiring in the best sense of that word. I suppose that’s all any of us can hope to do.
OK, I have to do one more, I don’t think Grant would want me ending this on a downer. So let’s end it on the ultimate upper — this was the year that Buck O’Neil was finally inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. And it was glorious.
Thanks so much to all you brilliant readers for the holiday wishes and for being loyal supporters of JoeBlogs! Our old colleague Mark Mravic, who worked with Grant Wahl on his Substack and was his longtime soccer sidekick at SI, always said he wasn’t really Grant’s editor as much as his “suggester,” and I think that pretty much describes my work here: learning every day, having a lot of fun and trying to read as fast as Joe writes :-) And now I will get back to watching more Ryan George videos. Thanks, Joe!
Larry - Thanks for all your work here!
Have a healthy, Happy New Year!
- A grateful subscriber, reader, and (more-than-occasional) commenter