In football, does something have to “give,” in light of the horrific injuries we are seeing? What would that something be? I begin my column today with this question. I end it with words about David French — one of my favorite writers and people — who will soon occupy an important perch: columnist for the New York Times.
Let’s have some mail. In my Impromptus on Monday, I mentioned Stanley Drucker, who spent 60 years in the New York Philharmonic. He was a clarinetist and one of the outstanding orchestral musicians of the 20th century. He has passed away at 93.
A reader writes,
Thanks for your mention of the passing of the legendary Stanley Drucker, a giant of the “American school” of clarinet playing.
Anthony Gigliotti, Robert Marcellus, my own mentor Mitchell Lurie, and a number of others were all pupils of Daniel Bonade, and many were classmates at Curtis in the 1930s and ’40s.
Mitchell Lurie was probably heard by more of the population than his fellows combined, given his studio-orchestra recordings of soundtracks for everything from The Man with the Golden Arm to The Sound of Music.
I mentioned him to you on the 2008 NR cruise. I remember watching Stanley Drucker on TV with Leonard Bernstein and the N.Y. Phil. when I was a youngster. What a sound. What a player. What a generation.
One more:
Thanks, Mr. Nordlinger, for noting the death of Mr. Drucker, certainly a star among clarinetists. In June 1972 I participated in the International Clarinet Society competition for graduating high schoolers in Denver. (Alas, I did not do well.) Mr. Drucker performed in recital and gave a master class at that conference. I still remember a bit of his advice about managing reeds. Never again heard him in person, but often in recorded performances. What a remarkable, long career!
In that Impromptus on Monday, I showed a picture of a boat-like Oldsmobile station wagon — a big ol’ beauty. A reader writes, simply,
Man, do I miss the Oldsmobile. All of the best cars I owned were Oldsmobiles.
I recalled a New Year’s Eve, when Bill Buckley drove into Stamford (Conn.) to get some Kentucky Fried Chicken (which he loved). A reader writes,
So, when you were hittin’ the Stamford KFC, who was driving?
He was. And his basic thinking was that the rules of the road were for other people. It was their job to look out for him — which they kind of did . . .
Finally, an interesting letter concerning sports. Responding to a recent sportscast of mine, a reader writes,
Jay,
There is an aspect to the way soccer is structured in the rest of the world that may hold some appeal for you.
On your latest podcast you rued the fact that football and basketball teams can play a full league schedule to win the season, only to enter a tournament that renders the regular-season title more or less meaningless. I agree.
In most world soccer leagues, there are no playoffs at the end of the year in the top rank. Whoever wins, wins. But whoever loses . . . gets a demotion to the lower league. And whoever wins in the second tier (Triple A baseball, as it were) wins promotion to the top flight (the Majors).
Imagine how much more fun a baseball season would be if the last-place National League team and the last-place American League team spent August and September trying to fight off relegation to Triple A. And the Triple A teams were fighting for a chance to be in the Majors, and reap the huge financial rewards that come with the big TV contract and having Aaron Judge come to play in your stadium. This dynamic persists all the way down to tiny, semi-pro clubs with aspirations for more. (There are 5-6 levels of pro ball in most countries.) Maybe Northwestern tries to stay in the Big 10 and avoid demotion to a mid-major conference.
In the European leagues, some of the most exciting, frantic contests involve teams desperately trying to stave off relegation or to win promotion up through the hierarchy.
It also means that a team’s fans don’t just follow their club through time measured in single seasons, but over many seasons. It makes for a longer and more meaningful campaign.
It also serves the very capitalist goal of rewarding success and punishing failure. In American sports — and I do love them all — we punish failure with . . . high draft picks.
Some perspective I hope you might enjoy.
I did, thoroughly. Thank you to one and all readers, listeners, and correspondents.