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The Saratoga Special- 7/19
Jul 19, 2023 9:55:47 GMT -5
Post by tenfurlongs on Jul 19, 2023 9:55:47 GMT -5
thisishorseracing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/07-19-23.pdf
Third issue of this year's paper out today. I saw Terry Hill interviewing a family nearby to our seats in the backyard the other day, and chatted briefly with him about the publication, and his part in it. I told him he was a fine writer, and he said with a beaming smile "You know that all writers want to hear that, we live for it!"
I read his article in today's issue. He is a fine writer.
Excerpt from his article (page 33):
Palmer’s book (This Was Racing) was published in 1953, a year after his early death at the age of 48. It featured an introduction by his friend and sports writing colleague at the New York Herald Tribune, Red Smith. In it, Smith wrote, “Joe Palmer could write better than anybody in the world whose work appeared in newspapers.” Coming from Red Smith whose work appeared in newspapers and is considered one of the great sports journalists of all time, that’s mighty high praise.
Palmer was born and grew up in Lexington, Ky., which means that he came by his love of racing honestly, but he started out to be an English professor. He earned a Phi Beta Kappa key and a master’s degree at the University of Kentucky and then upgraded to the University of Michigan where he taught English literature and started working toward a PhD. (All right, I guess I have to come clean, the use of the word “upgraded” might be a tiny bit influenced by the fact that Michigan is my alma mater. Go Blue!) After completing all his requirements for his doctorate except his dissertation, he was offered a job as a racing writer in Kentucky. He immediately gave up his academic career in favor of the lure of horse racing.
Right call.
There are thousands of English professors, but there’s only one Joe Palmer. His writing style was inimitable. I say that with absolute certainty because for years I tried very hard to do just that. And though his book has been out of print for years, I’m OK because I have two copies. One for our home in Mexico and the other for our apartment in New York – both dog-eared. There’s also a copy at The Saratoga Special office. On a podcast from the Henry Street Taproom, my editor Tom Law once said, “Sometimes when we’ve put the paper to bed, we’ll depress ourselves by getting out Palmer and reading a piece or two and then think – what the hell do we think we’re doing?”
And like all of us, Saratoga always brought out the best in Palmer.
“Perhaps nothing is as hard to do as to keep time from passing and Saratoga has mastered at least the illusion of this. Saratoga has its critics, of course, but it is customarily shelled from long range. Let a man hang around the place for a while and drink his breakfast from the clubhouse porch and you have no more trouble with him.”
What the hell do we think we’re doing?
Red Smith said that every day when Palmer sat down to work at his typewriter (remember typewriters?) he would raise his eyes heavenward and say, “Give us this day our daily plinth.”
A plinth is a square stone slab that will support a column. For this column I found my plinth in Joe Palmer.
TW
Third issue of this year's paper out today. I saw Terry Hill interviewing a family nearby to our seats in the backyard the other day, and chatted briefly with him about the publication, and his part in it. I told him he was a fine writer, and he said with a beaming smile "You know that all writers want to hear that, we live for it!"
I read his article in today's issue. He is a fine writer.
Excerpt from his article (page 33):
Palmer’s book (This Was Racing) was published in 1953, a year after his early death at the age of 48. It featured an introduction by his friend and sports writing colleague at the New York Herald Tribune, Red Smith. In it, Smith wrote, “Joe Palmer could write better than anybody in the world whose work appeared in newspapers.” Coming from Red Smith whose work appeared in newspapers and is considered one of the great sports journalists of all time, that’s mighty high praise.
Palmer was born and grew up in Lexington, Ky., which means that he came by his love of racing honestly, but he started out to be an English professor. He earned a Phi Beta Kappa key and a master’s degree at the University of Kentucky and then upgraded to the University of Michigan where he taught English literature and started working toward a PhD. (All right, I guess I have to come clean, the use of the word “upgraded” might be a tiny bit influenced by the fact that Michigan is my alma mater. Go Blue!) After completing all his requirements for his doctorate except his dissertation, he was offered a job as a racing writer in Kentucky. He immediately gave up his academic career in favor of the lure of horse racing.
Right call.
There are thousands of English professors, but there’s only one Joe Palmer. His writing style was inimitable. I say that with absolute certainty because for years I tried very hard to do just that. And though his book has been out of print for years, I’m OK because I have two copies. One for our home in Mexico and the other for our apartment in New York – both dog-eared. There’s also a copy at The Saratoga Special office. On a podcast from the Henry Street Taproom, my editor Tom Law once said, “Sometimes when we’ve put the paper to bed, we’ll depress ourselves by getting out Palmer and reading a piece or two and then think – what the hell do we think we’re doing?”
And like all of us, Saratoga always brought out the best in Palmer.
“Perhaps nothing is as hard to do as to keep time from passing and Saratoga has mastered at least the illusion of this. Saratoga has its critics, of course, but it is customarily shelled from long range. Let a man hang around the place for a while and drink his breakfast from the clubhouse porch and you have no more trouble with him.”
What the hell do we think we’re doing?
Red Smith said that every day when Palmer sat down to work at his typewriter (remember typewriters?) he would raise his eyes heavenward and say, “Give us this day our daily plinth.”
A plinth is a square stone slab that will support a column. For this column I found my plinth in Joe Palmer.
TW
