In June another draw is the annual Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, where baseball scholars present papers on all aspects of the game and hear a keynote speaker. Nice place, he said.Every summer thousands of baseball fans flock to Cooperstown to see the annual induction ceremony of new Hall of Famers. He wished me well in my adventure and also mentioned that the last time he’d been in the Twin Cities was when he was playing minor league ball before World War II. After a few months a handwritten note arrived from Ancramdale. On a whim I sent Asinof a letter updating him on my new life. I soon moved on to a city of my own and other publishing work. Asinof revved up and was off, his eyes sparkling, his wit quick, his game most decidedly on. A line formed and steadily snaked down the aisle. On the weekend before Father’s Day, many asked for appropriate inscriptions. He was having fun, and we were his willing acolytes.ĭuring our in-booth signing for Man on Spikes, word quickly spread up and down the rowâ€”The slightly stooped, elegantly suited man was the author of Eight Men Out!â€”which naturally had special relevance for the Chicagoans and sports fans on hand. For three days he roved the show floor at McCormick Place, alternately amazed and chagrined at what the world of books had become. He was clearly thrilled for his first book to have a new life. In a story that confirmed all the possibilities of Life in the City for my ardent imagination, his rainy-day encounter with a woman holding an umbrella at a bus stop led to a friendship with opera great Frederica von Stade.Īsinof ruled the table that night with a gruff New York charm that I’d seen only in black and white movies starring actors he’d probably drank scotch with.

My colleague Gordon looked just like an old buddy from the Phillies farm team. He often received Isaac Asimov’s mail when they lived in the same building in Manhattan.

He included a discreet sidebar about his marriage to Jocelyn Brando (yes, that Brando) and delighted in detailing passionate tussles and feuds with big trade houses over the decades. Over a long dinner at the late, great Printer’s Row restaurant, we were treated to tales of his screenwriting days in Hollywood before he was blacklisted. The show was enjoying its Chicago run then, and I was there with SIU Press to launch a series on literary baseball writing that included a new edition of Asinof’s first novel, Man on Spikes.Īuthor-publisher relations can sometimes be a bit fraught, but spending time with Asinof was effortless. The news of Eliot Asinof’s passing earlier this week brought back memories of having spent time with him at a BEA in the late 90s.

Eliot asinof