Dinner With a Schmuck

Written by: Zach Hammer, The Reserve Clause

How many times have you been asked, “If you could go to dinner with anyone—alive or dead—who would it be?”? One, two, ten times? As far as I can remember—and believe me, my memory is about as short as most NFL running backs’ careers—I don’t think I’ve ever been asked this question. So I decided that I’m going to ask myself instead.

“Hey Zach, if you could go to dinner with anyone—alive or dead—who would it be?”

Hmm, GREAT question, but I don’t have to think about this for very long. It would be David Halberstram.

I’ll admit that I read and read a lot. I’m one of those people who will read the label on a body wash container just because I want to know how many rats were tested prior to pouring it on my loufa. Because I read so much I feel like I can afford to be a bit pretentious. I always try to identify a voice. Is this someone that I can identify with? Does this person romantify an aspect that I would never expect? Does this person pick subjects which are both intriguing and difficult? I know for certain that there is and never will be a writer like Halberstram.

I have read and re-read The Breaks of the Game probably five times in my life. It is a book that I can’t do without. Halberstram reels his readers in by digging into the characters and exploring topics and issues that most writers never do. I will always remember the day that Maurice Lucas died. Before reading Breaks I had no idea who Lucas was, but after learning about him over those 300-some odd pages, I felt like I knew that Luke didn’t go down without a fight. Luke became a part of me and when he died, I felt like I lost a member of my family.

The thing about Halberstram was that he was perhaps the greatest sports writer of all time. However, his genius transcended just sports. His views on war (The Best & the Brightest, The Coldest Winter), death (Firehouse), and life (The Fifties) gave readers an outlet to learn and to see both the good and the ability of man.  

But what would I want out of a dinner with the man that wrote so many of my favorite books?

I would want to know everything, and I’d probably do it over a plate of eggs and some coffee. I’d ask him what Bill Walton was like, I’d want to know how he could stomach talking with the families of the decimated firehouse from 9/11 and if he were alive, what he would want to write about now. After dinner was over, I’d want to go for a stroll and share a few cigars and talk about Bob Gibson and Mickey Mantle.

If you can’t already tell, Halberstram is my literary hero and the title of this column is not meant to insinuate that he is the schmuck. In fact, I am the schmuck. Even if I tried for the rest of my life to write the most impressive, touching stories, they could never reach neither the intensity nor the vulnerability that Halberstram wrote with. But in the meantime, I’m going to revisit Breaks, try to spark my writing and get lost in the mind of a genius.