Glory Days, They'll Pass You By

Last night, I attended a lively discussion on "The Cambridge Companion to Baseball" with the book's editor, Lenny Cassuto, and Caryn Rose (aka Metsgrrl). As it turned out, they had a connection even stronger than baseball - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

When I heard the terrible news about Clarence Clemons late Saturday night, I emailed Lenny. We have both been to at least 40 Bruce shows over the years, most of them with the E Street Band. I included in the email a link to a touching obituary on the main Springsteen fan site backstreets.com.

It was after I sent the email that I discovered that the obituary was written by the same person who was going to interview Lenny two day later.

(Read Clarence Clemons obituary written by Caryn Rose and Glenn Radecki and other Clarence tributes here.)

Though I suspect Lenny might have been just as happy to talk about Clarence, Caryn was coming off a string of radio and TV appearances as well as further updates to Backstreets, so once the evening officially got underway, all talk turned to baseball.

Since we were in Brooklyn (at the Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene), it was only appropriate for Caryn to begin by asking Lenny about an essay in the book on Walter O'Malley.

Caryn also asked if many of the writers identified themselves in the book as fans of specific teams. Lenny said that there was one Met fan, so I immediately jumped up, only to have Lenny remind me that it was actually a different writer.

Since my piece on the origins of free agency included a part on George Steinbrenner, it's probably just as well that I didn't identify myself as a Met fan in the book's bio section. But Squawker Lisa can verify that I was strictly objective when writing about the other Boss.

When the topic of fantasy baseball came up, Caryn said she was not a fan, so I decided not to mention that I have three teams and write on it for The Faster Times. But I should have mentioned that my fantasy football team is called the Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.

Overall, it was a fun event. I got to meet Metsgrrl, and had the chance to talk about Clarence with a writer from Backstreets, all at the same time.