Volume 4, Issue 52: Red Schoendienst

"Old Red, just as sharp as he was when he took his first at-bat in 1945."

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It is commonly accepted that the Baby Boomer generation is hanging on too long. This is not to say that they are living too long—while they may be living longer than any previous generation, as someone who cares quite a bit about quite a few Baby Boomers, I must say that I encourage them to live as long as they can—but instead that they are taking up more than their fair share of wealth, power and the cultural conversation. The President is 80 years old; his most likely challenger is 76; the outgoing Speaker of the House is 82; a fifth of the members of the U.S. Senate are 79 or older. Baby Boomers make up 28 percent of the population but own 70 percent of all disposable income. Seventy-five percent of all new television shows are Yellowstone spinoffs. There are many theories as to why, but there is no question that they are the generation that will not let go.

The problem with Boomers, as this conventional wisdom goes, is not just that they will not let go, but that the rest of us believe they would be so much happier if they would. After decades of constructing and maintaining a career, accumulating wealth, raising families, being at the center of everything, Boomers should, in this telling, understand that their time is over and thus enjoy the spoils of all that toil. Relax, we say, hoping to shuffle them off to a farm upstate, or at least a strip mall Margaritaville off the interstate, we’ll take it from here. Sure, the primary reason we want them to retire is to hand all that power over to us, but, trust us, it also is good for them: Enjoy your golden years! Take your foot off the gas! You made it! Here is some pudding.

As a Generation Xer who was grousing at Baby Boomers decades before today’s kids were OK Boomer-ing—we were sick of hearing about Woodstock before it was cool to be sick of hearing about Woodstock—I understand this: We’ve been trying to get them out of our way since we were all wearing our wack slacks with cob nobblers who were swingin’ on the flippety flop. This is particularly true considering not only are we the generation power passed over entirely—sorry, Beto—we’re all going to end up dying younger than the Boomers anyway. We lose in every direction. I get it.

But it’s funny how time works. Twenty-five years ago, I graduated from college and took my first job in the grownup world. Now, intellectually, I know 25 years is a long time; 25 years ago, Barack Obama could barely get booked on a public access station, Tom Brady was a backup college quarterback and there was a band called “the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies” on the pop charts. (This band is still touring, by the way.) But the thing about years going by is that 25 years, when you live it, doesn’t seem that long. I’m obviously a different person than I was 25 years ago in some pretty dramatic ways. But it’s still a throughline, still the same story: I can see how I got from there to here, and the decisions I made at the time, as bad as some of them were, made a certain sense to me in the same way my decisions make a certain sense to me now. I was an adult then, and I am an adult now. Different guy—but same guy. It was 25 years ago. It was also yesterday.

The thing is, though, once you realize that 25 years can go as quickly as 25 years can go, you realize that you’re a helluva lot closer to being one of those “old people” than you might like to admit. Because if I can remember precisely, vividly what my life was like 25 years ago, that means I can understand that I’ll be doing the same thing, looking back at now, in 25 years. And 25 years from now … I will be 72 years old. And if I care about the same things now that I did 25 years ago—and I do—then it stands to reason that I will care about most of them 25 years from now as well.

Which means I—like the Boomers—will not want to let go either.

Older people have the same affliction the rest of us have: They’re people. They have their obsessions and fears and eccentricities and annoying tendencies and wonderful little quirks and good cheer and foul humor—if anything, they just have more of all of these things because they’ve had so much more practice at all of them. Expecting them to give them up, to put aside what had made them them their entire lives, just because younger people have decided that it is now their turn, is denying them their right, even their ability, to be human. It is easy for us to tell them to step aside; we want their spot, after all. But I am far from persuaded that when we reach that age, we will be particularly eager to loosen our grip either.

I can’t think of anything that would make me want to die quicker than telling me I can’t do what I’ve wanted to do my entire life. I do not think this makes me unusual. When I think of the older people I know in my own life, the happiest ones are the ones who are the busiest—the ones who remain as active as possible, the ones are aren’t particularly relaxed or laid-back about anything. My father, 73 years young, only looks old when he’s not doing anything; when he’s fixing something, or wiring a clients’ house, or mowing the lawn, or hauling furniture, he is happy and useful and glowing—the same dad I’ve always known, the man I’ve always admired. My mother looks younger than women a decade behind her, because she is constantly active, running and going to the YMCA every day, forever reading and staying connected to the outside world. (My mother’s primary health concern is her IT band. This is probably a good sign.) One of my closest friends is 20 years my senior, and he looks exactly like he did when we met 15 years ago, in large part, I’d argue, because he never stopped engaging with the world around him, never stopped caring about his work as much as he did when he first started making it. It’s the ones whose worlds have gotten smaller, the ones who have disengaged with the world, who look tired and angry and confused and isolated. It’s the ones who have let go.

Again: This is anecdotal. There are surely thousands of people in the world, in your life, even in mine, who have gracefully stepped back as they’ve gotten older and found peace in it. But expecting someone to change their personality entirely—to abdicate their entire life’s work and drive and purpose—because they have reached an age when the rest of us have decided they should step away is unrealistic, unfair and even destructive. People are people—old, young, happy, sad. They care about what they care about. Everyone’s the star of their own story, a story that always feels like it’s just getting started. They are not supporting characters in ours. It is difficult to blame them for not willingly shuffling off the stage for our benefit.

And, seriously: I get it. I have long joked that I plan on dying at my desk, still writing about the Cardinals or Robert Altman movies or whatever weird shit I’ll be going on about, typing and typing and typing until the ticker finally gives out and my head thwacks down on the keyboard and it’s just ddddddddddl;afkdjs;lfj;ldkasdddddddddddddddddd forever. As I get older, this becomes less and less of a joke. People often ask me what I want out of my career, what the goal is, and I always tell them, “This. I write all day, every day. This was the goal.” I get to write about sports and movies and politics and how bewildering life is, and now they let me publish novels, and I’m where I wanted to be, where I dreamed of maybe someday being 25 years ago. I am not old yet. But it’s coming. And when it does, I can only dream to still be doing this. I spent 25 years desperate to get to write full-time. You’re telling me that someday, 25 years from now, or whenever, after working so hard to get there, that I’m just supposed to stop? Because you’ve decided it’s your turn? No thanks. I don’t know if it’s healthy. But it is still true: You’re going to have to come and get it from me. You’re going to have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality.

1. Your Big AL West Preview, MLB.com. Yep, it’s now close enough to the season that if I do one division preview every two weeks, as I always do, I have to start now.

2. An Interview With John Hendrickson, Author of Life on Delay, Medium. I’ll be transcribing and editing the People Still Read Books podcasts this year and putting them on Medium, which will be fun.

3. Tom Brady, Chasing the Dragon, New York. He probably won’t retire and … I get it?

4. Seven Veteran Free Agents Who Are Worth Giving a Shot, MLB.com. I am not ready to say goodbye to these guys yet. I’ve known their names for decades now!

5. The World Has Moved On From Bob Knight, Medium. This was me getting myself psyched up for Illinois-Indiana on Thursday night.

6. Who’s Most Likely to Pull Out of Last Place This Year? MLB.com. I sorta bet they’re all going to stay in last place, though.

Also, they revamped my writer page at New York, so there’s now a clearinghouse and archive for everything I’ve written, finally. (Though there’s also a separate page for everything that was in the magazine before 2013.) They even made an illustration and bio for me. I think I look faintly British.

PODCASTS

Grierson & Leitch, no Grierson until January 29, but I have added the old People Still Read Books podcast to this feed, so you can listen to my talk with John Hendrickson there. It is a terrific conversation, I think, and one that you’ll find fascinating and even a little inspiring.

Seeing Red, Bernie and I did our first show of 2023. Not as much to discuss as we might like!

Waitin' Since Last Saturday, we did an in-our-feelings show after the second straight national championship.

LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK

“Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover,” Zoë Schiffer, Casey Newton, and Alex Heath, New York. I will say, that I do not generally care much about Elon Musk or Twitter. But this is quite a read. Seems like a cool guy!

Also on the Musk beat: An NYT Mag piece about why Teslas are always crashing.

ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!

This is your reminder that if you write me a letter and put it in the mail, I will respond to it with a letter of my own, and send that letter right to you! It really happens! Hundreds of satisfied customers!

Write me at:

Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

“Blue,” The Jayhawks. The first concert I ever saw was Metallica at Assembly Hall in Champaign. The second concert I ever saw was The Black Crowes, also at Assembly Hall in Champaign. The opening band: The Jayhawks, who, even though I was only 16 years old and still a little bit too into Def Leppard, I instantly knew was terrific. They hadn’t written this song yet, but you could see that someday they would. This has just the prettiest chorus.

Remember to listen to The Official Will Leitch Newsletter Spotify Playlist, featuring every song ever mentioned in this section.

Hang in there, everybody, it’s gonna be all right.

Best,
Will