Roger Angell’s Writing on Baseball Was in a League of Its Own

Writing about Roger Angell is a form of conceit. It is like commenting on Ted Williams’s batting stance or Tiger Woods’s putting stroke.

Angell, the New Yorker’s baseball writer, died May 22 at 101. His stepfather was E. B. White, the legendary humorist and author. White married Katharine Sergeant Angell, the New Yorker’s fiction editor, in 1929, when Roger was 9. He couldn’t help but be influenced by the two literary giants in his family, and it was no surprise he turned to writing. He was a fine and gracious man.