"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Now, hold your intervention on me. By enjoying these days fully does not mean that I think we're on easy street no more than enjoying the wonderful colors of Fall means that I do not realize that soon enough "the austere sun descends above the fen … brooding as the winter night comes on" (Plath).
No, nothing has been won yet, no wildcard, no division, and who knows any postseason play will be at hand — But don't cheat yourself out of the joy. Don't think of the brown leaves, think of the "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness."
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Good omens? Beer sellers at Fenway say a 1918 penny found stuck to their counter is a good-luck talisman * A teen who lives in Babe Ruth's old Sudbury, Mass., farmhouse believes the foul ball at Fenway that knocked out two of his teeth may have atoned for the Bambino's Curse
He was a genuine local character who was the best Red Sox manager in my years of following the team. They never should have let him go.
I can still hear him being interviewed from spring training in Winter Haven describing a long home run that went over the fence and "conked a cow on the coconut."
For those so inclined, here are a few articles on Tollway Joe from 1988, when his ship came in after he'd spent years beating the bushes. Coconuts feature prominently.
A piece by Leigh Montville has him singing "I've Got a Loverly Bunch of Coconuts" after a playoff loss to the Athletics and promising to come back at the A's with the "hammers of hell."
Bob Ryan quotes him on the prospect of a rainout in the playoff series with Oakland:
Morgan said he is hoping for "a ton of rain" today. That way, he can go mushroom picking in Walpole. "You've got to do it right after a heavy rain, no other time," Morgan reports. Morgan on determining whether a mushroom is poisonous: "It can be a tough call. It's like when you're waiting for that slider and the heater comes right for the coconut. That's a tough call."
Michael Madden describes Morgan's John R. Tunis-like turns of phrase, and the racehorse named for him.
And Dan Shaughnessy, in a pair of pieces, describes Morgan's driving a snowplow on the Mass. Turnpike in the off-season, and his buying vestments for Mass at his parish in Walpole.
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