I've been catching up on EconTalk podcasts and Russ Roberts's discussion of grit, with author Angela Duckworth, was so typically engaging that I snagged the book when I saw it at the Thrift Store. Ms Duckworth makes one central claim: that grit is both measurable and a reliable indicator of likely success at a range of endeavors. As she formulates grit in the text, it can be broken down to:

(1) Talent x Effort = Skill

(2) Skill x Effort = Achievement

And as she explained on the podcast, a talent can be identified as something that we do where we learn quickly. To put it in Gladwellian terms, I might spend 10,000 hours practicing ballet and never get any good at it, but might pick up a golf club for the first time and be reasonable at the game within 5,000 hours of practice. The latter could then be thought of as a skill of mine. But even once I recognized golf as a skill, I would still have to put in the effort to achieve at it. Stated in these terms, her assertion seems pretty common-sensical and modest. Find something you are talented at and pursue it with determination and achievement is likely to follow. That does not seem overly controversial.

Silly me. Once you start doing some on-line research you stumble into a morass of charge and counter-charge over the Professor and her thesis. She stands accused of denying that talent either exists or matters, of botching her research, of being unoriginal, etc. Now, at the point where your critics are maintaining that your work is both obvious and wrong we can assume there's something odd going on here. It appears to be just jealousy that here presentation of these ideas has broken out of the Ivory Towers and reached a mass audience. A characteristic snipe is that "grit" is just a restatement of one of the well-known Big 5 Personality Traits. We all know which one, right? Of course not. We've never heard of them, nor cared, until she offered this variation on one: conscientiousness. Her peers in the field of psychology ought to be ecstatic that so many people have been made familiar with their work for maybe the first time, but that's not how Academia works, is it?

So let's ignore all the petty squabbling and look at one illustration of how grit works, one that stunned me as I was rereading Pat Jordan's classic memoir of failure, A False Spring. In the late 1950s, Jordan was local legend pitching phenom. Even as a Little Leaguer he was written up in Ripley's Believe it or Not and Dick Young's NY Daily News column after throwing four consecutive no-hitters. Scouts descended on his high school games, at Fairfield Prep in Connecticut. His great weapon was a preternatural fastball--back in the days before Driveline, when velocity was an unusual thing--but what drove him was an older half-brother who dreamed of a big bonus that would repay their parents for the cost of his legal education. In pursuit of this bonus, Jordan kept trying to throw harder and harder to the point where he struggled somewhat in his senior year and get less of a bonus than they'd imagined.

The Milwaukee Braves signed him for $36k and shipped the 18-year old off to McCook, Nebraska in the Class D Nebraska State League. What followed was a brief career that ranged from lackluster to disastrous, as his immaturity, arrogance, lack of the motivation his brother had always provided, and dependence on the fastball prevented him from developing. The book has long been hailed for brutal honesty about his shortcomings as a player and a person--most famously, when writing the book he contacted the young woman he'd deflowered and promptly dumped in that 1959 season and at the end of their conversation she revealed that they'd had a daughter. Other than a brief period in Instructional League, when Whitlow Wyatt somehow managed to get through to him, Jordan was pretty uncoachable. But Whitlow got him to improve his control by backing off on his natural velocity and using a more compact delivery that allowed him to throw strikes.

One might think that finally achieving some success in the pro game would have been rewarding, especially after his unexpected failures, but that's not what Jordan experienced:

The thought of continued and, maybe, permanent failure terrified me. For years I had heard only the sounds of my parents' approval as I pitched to my brother on the sidewalk in front of our house. I had avoided failure so much longer than most (all those years of no-hitters and strikeouts) that its intrusion into my life was at first incomprehensible and then so terrifying that I would do anything to shake it. I was even willing to compromise the only thing in my life I had ever consciously cultivated, and the only thing in myself I had ever valued--my natural talent.

It was an easy corruption, begun first in high school when I had subordinated perfecting that talent to my quest for the largest bonus. That was the first time I had ever consciously used my talent, whose perfection had been my only end, as a means to another end. Now, in Bradenton, when I should have been trying to perfect that talent (to throw as naturally and fast as I could, and only then trying to control it), I again subordinated that to another end. I deliberately frustrated the natural limits of my talent in the hope that this would bring me--not success, even--but simply the absence of failure. Such a cowardly satisfaction! And one that ultimately led to a failure so without the satisfaction a nobler failure might have had, that I have yet to come to grips with it...to admit that I destroyed my talent, the one thing in me that was special to me. It doesn't matter what that thing was or how trivial it might have been. It only matters that such a thing did exist in me, as it does in us all, and that by refusing to risk perfecting it I was denying what most truly defined me.

What is immediately striking about this is how wrong it is as a matter of baseball. The object of the game for a pitcher is not to be the hardest thrower ever but to get the opposing hitter out. To the extent that throwing hard was his talent, it was not sufficient to the game. No pitcher has ever gotten by with just fastballs, especially if he couldn't throw them for strikes. Far from corrupting his pitching talent, Jordan was at the precise moment when he had a chance to perfect it. The actual corruption was when he kept trying to increase velocity for velocity sake alone. But it is his own analysis that has made this memoir not only one of the most revered of baseball books but a signal text on the squandering of talent.

Now maybe it was only because of the proximity of the two readings, but, informed by Ms Duckworth's Grit, I had an epiphany when delving into : Pat Jordan's talent was not for baseball but for writing. Refusing to make the adjustments--put in the effort--to deveop his pitching talent, he was out of baseball after just three years. His minor league career, had he not written so compellingly about it, would be entirely forgotten, as indeed would he be. But he has worked at the craft of writing for over 50 years and not only produced that one great book, but innumerable profiles and essays that are considered peak sports-writing and magazine journalism. Plotted along Ms Duckworth's axis: he had a talent for writing and put in the necessary work to become skillful; having developed skill he put in more work and achieved greatness.

The most storied failure in literature illustrates the meaning and value of grit.

(Reviewed:25-May-20)

Grade: (A+) Orrin C. Judd

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Pat Jordan Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Pat Jordan
    -AUTHOR SITE: PatJordanStories.com
    -ENTRY: Pat Jordan (Baseball Reference)
    -PLAYER CARD: Past Jordan (Baseball Cube)
    -BOOK PAGE: A False Spring by Pat Jordan (Nebraska Press)
    -ENTRY: Jordan, Pat(rick M.) 1941- (Encyclopedia.com)
    -ESSAY: Big Sky, Big Dream: When he was young and a fastballer of promise, the author received a major-league bonus and was sent to McCook, Neb. to test his arm against his fantasies (Pat Jordan, 6/11/73, SI)
    -ESSAY: How a Teenage Baseball Prodigy Fell From Glory to Face an Unfortunate Flameout (Pat Jordan, Men's Journal)
    -ESSAY: Brother: Why I no longer speak to the sibling who raised me like a father. (Pat Jordan, June 30, 2010, Slate)
    -ESSAY: You Get Old (Pat Jordan, 7/12//12, Men's Journal)
    -ESSAY: Looking for My Father in Las Vegas (Pat Jordan, Jan. 21, 2007, NY Times Magazine)
    -ESSAY: The pain and pleasure of Spring: How I lost my fastball but learned to love Spring Training (Pat Jordan | February 21, 2013, SB Nation)
    -ESSAY: What I Learned From My Father, the Grifter (Pat Jordan, Men's Journal)
    -ESSAY: BITTERSWEET MEMORIES OF MY FATHER, THE GAMBLER (Pat Jordan, 2/09/87, SI)
    -ESSAY: The Constant Gardener (Pat Jordan, December 12, 2013, Sports on Earth)
    -ESSAY: WE ARE BOTH PROUD ATHLETES, BUT SEAVER IS BLESSED (Pat Jordan, Aug. 31, 1986, NY Times)
    -ESSAY: Thin Air: In The Mountains With Steve Carlton, Armed Conspiracist (Pat Jordan, April 1994, Philadelphia Magazine)
    -ESSAY: Geno Auriemma, Mr. Women's Basketball (Pat Jordan, 3/22/12, Deadspin)
    -ESSAY: The Funniest Man in Baseball (Pat Jordan, October/November 2012, Garden & Gun)
    -ESSAY: Josh Beckett Won’t Return My Phone Calls: Athletes don’t trust reporters, reporters resent athletes, and readers don’t know their heroes as they used to. (Pat Jordan, May 22, 2008, Slate)
    -ESSAY: No joy in Sorrento: A baseball myth strikes out (Pat Jordan, Harper's)
    -ESSAY: The Wit and Wisdom of the White Rat (Pat Jordan, May 10, 1992, Los Angeles Times)
    -ESSAY: This Line Will Not Be Crossed (Pat Jordan, Dec. 23, 2001, NY Times Magazine)
    -ESSAY: Traci Lords With Her Clothes On (Pat Jordan, 1990, GQ)
    -ESSAY: Dad’s Last Visit (Pat Jordan, November/December 2006, AARP)
    -ESSAY: Breaking the Wall (Pat Jordan, 1989, TV Guide)
    -ESSAY: Magnum, P(retty) I(ndecisive) (Pat Jordan, October 1989, GQ)
    -ESSAY: Who Killed Jaco Pastorius? (Pat Jordan, April 1988, GQ)
    -ESSAY: Trouble in Paradise (Pat Jordan, 1980, Inside Sports)
    -ESSAY: The Duke of Deception (Pat Jordan, October 1987, Southern Magazine)
    -ESSAY: Chasing Jose (Pat Jordan, 3/26/08, Deadspin)
    -ESSAY: Friends (Pat Jordan, 1/06/08, Baseball Analysts)
    -ESSAY: The Wildest Fastball Ever: Steve Dalkowski's pitches didn't rip through the air, they appeared under mystified Ted Williams' chin as if by magic ( Pat Jordan, 10/12/70, SI)
    -ESSAY: AN EX-PITCHER DISCOVERS THE HARSH REALITIES ABOUT LIFE AFTER BASEBALL (Pat Jordan, 4/14/86, SI)
    -ESSAY: David Duke: The Most Charming Bigot You Ever Met: Handsome and articulate, David Duke looked like no Klansman you ever met, but even after he ditched the white sheets for politics, he never abandoned his racist theories. (Pat Jordan, Apr. 14, 2017, Daily Beast)
    -ESSAY: Decline of the Curve: Many have tried, but few have mastered the art of throwing a devastating overhand curveball. Now, the cutter is king. (Pat Jordan, August 6, 2014, Sports on Earth)
    -ESSAY: An Idiot In Exile: Johnny Damon is just a big kid at heart, and that's perhaps both the best and worst thing about him. (Pat Jordan, July 24, 2014, Sports on Earth)
    -ESSAY: How Samuel L. Jackson Became His Own Genre (Pat Jordan, 4/29/12, NY Times Magazine)
    -ESSAY: Dale Earnhardt, Jr.: The Son Also Races (Pat Jordan, 7/25/13, Men's Journal)
    -ESSAY: Joe Maddon, Baseball’s Scrappy Genius (Pat Jordan, 3/15/13, Men's Journal)
    -ESSAY: Justin Verlander, The Throwback (Pat Jordan, 10/24/12, Men's Journal)
    -ESSAY: Does This Ex-Con Know the NBA Better Than LeBron: Disgraced referee Tim Donaghy sees a different game from the rest of us. Which is why, out of prison, he’s now sports gambling’s golden boy. (Pat Jordan, 6/14/15, New York)
    -ESSAY: How Disgraced Former NBA Referee Tim Donaghy Sees the Finals (Pat Jordan, 6/11/15, New York)
    -ESSAY: Late Innings; Roger Clemens Refuses to Grow Up (Pat Jordan, March 4, 2001, NY Times Magazine)
    -ESSAY: The Phillies’ Four Aces (Pat Jordan, 4/03/11, NY Times Magazine)
    -ESSAY: The Art Of The Insult: How To Win A Swearing Contest With Dignity (Pat Jordan, 3/06/14, deadspin)
    -ESSAY: The Lion in Late, Late Autumn (Pat Jordan, Aug. 29, 2004, NY Times Magazine)
    -ESSAY: The Hardest Stuff (Pat Jordan, Sept. 14, 2003, NY Times Magazine)
    -ESSAY: Lessons from the linescore: Learning from the plodding pitchers, who succeed without "stuff" (Pat Jordan, June 11, 2013, SB Nation)
    -ESSAY: Pinellas Park, Florida. Freeze-Dried Memories: Pets: A service for pet owners means never having to say goodbye (Pat Jordan Monday, Feb. 13, 1989 , TIME)
    -ESSAY: In Florida: Filling the Hours with Bingo! (Pat Jordan, Apr. 25, 1988, TIME)
    -ESSAY: American Scene in Connecticut: Game Time (Pat Jordan, Nov. 10, 1986 , TIME)
    -ESSAY: Card Stud (Pat Jordan, May 29, 2005, NY Times Magazine)
    -ESSAY: The Magician: The world's best pool player sees shots no one else can (Pat Jordan, March 2005, The Atlantic)
    -ESSAY: The Outcast: Conversations with O. J. Simpson. (Pat Jordan, July 2, 2001, The New Yorker)
    -ESSAY: His Own Path: Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Chris Archer is one of baseball's rising stars and, at 25, is trying to establish his own identity. (Pat Jordan, March 27, 2014, Sports on Earth)
    -ESSAY: Evel Never Dies: Before anyone ever dreamed of the XGames, Evel Knievel bet his life on every performance. All these years later, he’s still a step ahead of the Grim Reaper. (Pat Jordan, Nov 16, 2007, Maxim)
    -ESSAY: Puppy Dreams: Sometimes the hardest part is not getting the dog (Pat Jordan, February/March 2012, Garden & Gun)
    -ESSAY: Lethal Weapon (Pat Jordan, September 1989, Playboy)
    -ESSAY: Down And Out In Daytona, Part 1: A Postcard From Spring Break, Circa 1983,/a> (Pat Jordan, 3/24/10 , deadspin)
    -ESSAY: The Haircut (Pat Jordan, Southern Review)
    -ESSAY: A Mound Of Troubles: Rick Ankiel was the most promising young left-handed pitcher in a generation. Then his life -- and his pitching -- spun out of control. (PAT JORDAN, 2/11/01, NY Times Magazine)
    -ESSAY: The Holdout (Pat Jordan, July 18, 2004, NY Times Magazine)
    -ESSAY: An ex-ball player slides into stocks: After his mutual funds tanked, Lenny Dykstra leaned on some heavy hitters to transform him from an ex-major leaguer to a minor-league stock picker. (Pat Jordan, 12/12/06, Fortune)
    -ESSAY: Curious Buck: Don't call Orioles manager Buck Showalter a "control freak." He prefers to say he's "overly alert." (Pat Jordan, April 30, 2014, Sports on Earth)
    -ESSAY: Bill Walton's Inside Game (Pat Jordan, Oct. 28, 2001, NY Times Magazine)
    -ESSAY: The Mystery of Barry Zito (Pat Jordan, Sept. 12, 2008, NY Times Magazine)
    -ESSAY: A Clutch of Odd Birds: In the pool hall's pecking order, there was a spot for each of the town's wastrels, a niche where even a cue-room turkey felt at home. It was not a bad place to come of age (Pat Jordan, 8/30/71, SI)
    -ESSAY: Once He Was an Angel: bon vivant Bo Belinsky muses on the pitching promise he wasted, and the fun he had doing it (Pat Jordan, March 1972, SI)
    -ESSAY: HAS CESTA, WILL PLAY: Becky Smith wants to be jai alai's first woman pro (Pat Jordan, 8/10/87, SI)
    -ESSAY: KID K: In 1952, Ron Necciai, 19, struck out 27 batters in nine innings (Pat Jordan, 6/01/87, SI)
    -ESSAY: A BEACH BIKE PROVED JUST THE TICKET FOR SEXY LEGS AND A SUNNY MARRIAGE (Pat Jordan, 2/10/86, SI)
    -ESSAY: HELPED BY A GOODWILL AMBASSADOR, BASEBALL ITALIAN-STYLE IS THRIVING (Pat Jordan, 9/23/85, SI)
    -ESSAY: A THOROUGHLY UPLIFTING EXPERIENCE: More and more women are hefting weights—and more probably should. They will look not like Mr. America, but their best selves (Pat Jordan, 8/2/76, SI)
    -ESSAY: The stuff, and no nonsense: As a Texas Ranger he is richer, but will Blyleven pay attention? (Pat Jordan, 6/14/76, SI)
    -ESSAY: THE WINNER WHO WALKED AWAY: A growing awareness of death rode with Phil Hill when he drove his Ferrari world championship in 1961, but in the self-examination of retirement he feels the fascination of racing's fatal spell (Pat Jordan, 3/22/76, SI)
    -ESSAY: Designing Woman: A lot of people in volleyball consider Mary Jo Peppler a talented but temperamental prima donna. Yet few deny that the Superstars winner is in tune with these times (Pat Jordan, 8/04/75, SI)
    -ESSAY: SHORTSTOP WITH A SHORT FUSE : There's no debating the dolce of his vita around the pad; the question about Tim Foli, slick fielder and hothead, is whether his temperament has helped or hurt his career (Pat Jordan, 6/09/75, SI)
    -ESSAY: Not bonny for Clyde: The Rangers' boy hero struggles to recover his stuff in the minors (Pat Jordan, 5/26/75, SI)
    -ESSAY: HE NEVER GAMBLED FOR THE GREEN BUT PUT HIS STAMP ON TWO PROFESSIONS (Pat Jordan, 5/05/75, SI)
    -ESSAY: FIGHT, LADIES, FIGHT!: The question is how. While relishing sport, Penn State women reflect attitudes that are both ruthless and relaxed (Pat Jordan, 3/10/75, SI)
    -ESSAY: LeROY NEIMAN'S WORK REVEALS HIM, IN SOME WAYS, AS A CARBON-PAPER DALI (Pat Jordan, 1/13/75, SI)
    -ESSAY: AFTER THE SUNDOWN: Ahead of an athlete, especially one who knew euphoric days of fame, lie retirement and the pain of adapting to another world (Pat Jordan, 1/06/75, SI)
    -ESSAY: Dubious triumph in Florida: Nicaraguans believe they were thrown a changeup in St. Petersburg by the U.S. organizers and thereby deprived of the world amateur title (Pat Jordan, 12/09/74, SI)
    -ESSAY: Lady with a lock on life: Even after years of bruising eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth battles, the queen of the wrestlers, Fabulous Moolah, remains the belle of the brawl (Pat Jordan, 11/18/74, SI)
    -ESSAY: Season of pride and tension: Uncertainty over when his 3,000th hit will come makes Al Kaline edgy (Pat Jordan, 9/09/74, SI)
    -ESSAY: The early birds squirmed: Led by omnipotent Pitcher Joan Joyce, the American team took the world title from the Japanese, who practiced under the rising sun (Pat Jordan, 8/26/74, SI)
    -ESSAY: Years ahead of his time: Robin Yount, youngest player in the majors, has few shortcomings (Pat Jordan, 7/29/74, SI)
    -ESSAY: Three rivers, two strikes: Failing to get timely hits from vaunted batsmen and needed relief from the bullpen, Pittsburgh's Pirates are treading water above last place (Pat Jordan, 7/08/74, SI)
    -ESSAY: Forkballer of the year: Gaylord Perry has 10 consecutive wins and, he insists, a dry sinker (Pat Jordan, Jun 17, 1974, SI)
    -ESSAY: Glowing within the oyster: A pearl of a pitcher, Bert Blyleven is fortunate to be encased in an inconspicuous shell; undisturbed, he can add luster to his skills (Pat Jordan, 5/20.74, SI)
    -ESSAY: Mr. Intensity of the Expos: A winner's smile masks a tumult of emotion, for Steve Rogers is Mr. Intensity of the Expos (Pat Jordan, 4/29/74, SI)
    -ESSAY: PITCHER IN SEARCH OF A PITCH: Pittsburgh's Steve Blass was a big winner until his control began to go. The new season finds him desperately worried (Pat Jordan, 4/15/74, SI)
    -ESSAY: STRONG, SILENT, ENDURING: But is Walter Alston a superior manager? Is he a seer or merely at sea? As the Dodger perennial begins his 21st season, opinion among his past and present players is sharply divided (Pat Jordan, 3/11/74, SI)
    -ESSAY: BIG NOISE BLEW IN FROM POMONA: Down among the throbbing eardrums in the season's first big drag-racing event, the $280,000 Winternationals, there were Funny Cars, fun cars and a not-such-fun crash. Happily the driver was unhurt (Pat Jordan, 2/11/74, SI)
    -ESSAY: THE VITA'S STILL DOLCE, BUT... (Hockey's chief nonconformist and big spender, Derek Sanderson of the Bruins, tastes life in the minor leagues (Pat Jordan, 1/07/74, SI)
    -ESSAY: Nolan Ryan should be so fast (Pat Jordan, 9/03/73, SI)
    -ESSAY: TOM TERRIFIC AND HIS MYSTIC TALENT: The pitching wonders he works did not come swiftly or naturally to Seaver; in fact, the modesty of his skill was the making of the man (Pat Jordan, 7/24/73, SI)

I don't ever think about it," he says. "Philosophically, that is. Why do I do it? What does it all mean? That doesn't interest me. I only know it excites me. It's the one thing I do in my life that excites me." Tom Seaver, untanned, wearing a gray T shirt and baggy Bermuda shorts, is standing on the sand in Madeira Beach, Fla. He is holding a piece of string to which is attached a kite that is only a speck far off in a cloudless sky. The sky is aswarm with the flap and caw of sea gulls. Big, grayish, heavy-breasted birds, they must beat their wings furiously, stomachs heaving, necks straining forward, so that for one brief moment they can level off and glide with a hard-earned and uncommon grace.

"Aren't they fascinating!" says Seaver. "The way they work at it! I could watch them for hours. I'd love to fly like the gulls. But I can't. So I pitch. If I couldn't pitch I'd do something else. It wouldn't bother me much. But if I could pitch and I wasn't, that would bother me. That would bother me a lot.

"Pitching is what makes me happy. I've devoted my life to it. I live my life around the four days between starts. It determines what I eat, when I go to bed, what I do when I'm awake. It determines how I spend my life when I'm not pitching. If it means I have to come to Florida and can't get tanned because I might get a burn that would keep me from throwing for a few days, then I never go shirtless in the sun. If it means when I get up in the morning I have to read the box scores to see who got two hits off Bill Singer last night instead of reading a novel, then I do it. If it means I have to remind myself to pet dogs with my left hand or throw logs on the fire with my left hand, then I do that, too. If it means in the winter I eat cottage cheese instead of chocolate chip cookies in order to keep my weight down, then I eat cottage cheese. I might want those cookies but I won't ever eat them. That might bother some people but it doesn't bother me. I enjoy the cottage cheese. I enjoy it more than I would those cookies because I know it will help me do what makes me happy.

"Life isn't very heavy for me. I've made up my mind what I want to do. I'm happy when I pitch well so I only do those things that help me be happy. I wouldn't be able to dedicate myself like this for money or glory, although they are certainly considerations. If I pitch well for 15 years I'll be able to give my family security. But that isn't what motivates me. What motivates some pitchers is to be known as the fastest who ever lived. Some want to have the greatest season ever. All I want is to do the best I possibly can day after day, year after year. Pitching is the whole thing for me. I want to prove I'm the best ever."

    -ESSAY: IN A WORLD OF WINDMILLS: John Sain is the best and most beloved pitching coach in baseball. This does not necessarily represent the opinion of the management (Pat Jordan, 5/08/72, SI)
    -ESSAY: End of Innocence: Bruce Kison seemed a wide-eyed rookie, agog at playing in a World Series, until he uncorked his fastball and brought the Orioles to their knees (Pat Jordan, 4/10/72, SI)
    -ESSAY: WHAT MADE RICHIE RUN?: As a showboating youth, it was applause and the promise of celebrity, but then the clapping stopped and heroin became his substitute goal (Pat Jordan, 1/24/72, SI)
    -ESSAY: ICEMEN YOU'D LOVE TO HATE (Pat Jordan, 12/13/71, SI)
    -ESSAY: A Clutch of Odd Birds: In the pool hall's pecking order, there was a spot for each of the town's wastrels, a niche where even a cue-room turkey felt at home. It was not a bad place to come of age 9Pat Jordan, 8/30/71, SI)
    -ESSAY: An Old Hand with a Prospect: Men play out their time—those who are too young and those who have become too old—in the minor leagues. And there, in failure, a man sometimes finds success (Pat Jordan, 6/14/71, SI)
    -ESSAY: A lady in the shower?: When Anne Robbins goes into the St. Peter's locker room, the players don't give it a thought (Pat Jordan, 3/01/71, SI)
    -ESSAY: SAM OF 1,000 WAYS: Pitching is just another diverting challenge to Sudden Sam McDowell, who marches not only to his own drummer, but to a different one every day (Pat Jordan, Aug 17, 1970, SI)
    -ESSAY: You Can't Beat The Draft: The bird dogs spot the bright young players first. Then come the scouts, the evaluators of baseball talent. The scouts used to be salesmen, wheedlers, con men, but the free-agent draft changed all that (Pat Jordan, 7/27/70, SI)
    -VIDEO: The Best Sports Writing of Pat Jordan, part 1: Dean Lawrence Velvel interviews famed sports writer Pat Jordan about his book, "The Best Sports Writing of Pat Jordan". (Massachusetts School of Law at Andover, 6/23/09)
    -VIDEO: The Best Sports Writing of Pat Jordan, part 2 (Massachusetts School of Law at Andover, 6/23/09)
    -INTERVIEW: An interview with Pat Jordan: The legendary magazine writer and A False Spring author has written for himself since 1970 – and he’s having more fun than ever. (Pete Croatto, December 6, 2019, Writer)
    -INTERVIEW: PAT JORDAN (Alex Belth, 10/30/03, Bronx Banter)
    -PROFILE: An Odd Yet Perfect Matchup (John Bernhardt, January 5, 2014, Metsmerized)
    -INTERVIEW: Pat Jordan Doesn't Mess Around (DAULERIO, 4/28/08, Deadspin)
    -INTERVIEW: Pat Jordan Interview and a Double Trifecta (The Jacob Valk Show, 5/06/20, You Tube)
    -PODCAST: Pat Jordan<: On how a soon-to-be 80-year-old scribe transitions from typewriter to computer; on seeing the real Roger Clemens; on having the subject of your profile call your wife to say you're cheating on her; on a bond with Tom Seaver; on flip phone life. (Two Writers Slinging Yang, 9/02/19)
    -PROFILE: The loser's champion (Chauncey Mabe, 5/04/08, South Florida Sun-Sentinel)
    -PROFILE: A false failure (COLIN RIDDLE, Apr 4, 2015, indexjournal.com)
    -PROFILE: All The Right Moves--And A Few Wrong Ones--With Pat Jordan (Alex Belth, 11/13/13, deasdspin)
    -PROFILE: Crusty Old Man Writes Drivel About Four Aces, and Mike Schmidt is Kind of an Ass (Kyle Scott, April 4, 2011, Crossing Broad)
    -ESSAY: When Baseball Careers End (George Gmelch, Fall 2000/Spring 2001, NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture)
    -PROFILE: OLD MAN AND THE 'K' (DAVE JOSEPH, 8/07/97, SUN-SENTINEL)
    -ARTICLE: Pitcher and Reporter Are at Odds over Alleged Anti-semitic Remarks (JTA, April 18, 1994)
    -ESSAY: Outsiders' impressions of McCook (Linda Hein, January 4, 2002, McCook Gazette)
    -ARCHIVES: Pat Jordan (Sports Illustrated)
    -ARCHIVES: Pat Jordan (Longform)
    -ARCHIVES: Pat Jordan (Men's Journal)
    -ARCHIVES: Pat Jordan (Muck Rack)
    -REVIEW ARCHIVES: Pat Jordan (Publishers Weekly)
    -ARCHIVES: Pat Jordan (The Stacks Reader)
    -ARCHIVES: "pat jordan" (Grantland)
    -ARCHIVES: Pat Jordan (Slate)
    -ARCHIVES: "pat jordan" (Deadspin)
    -REVIEW: of False Spring by Pat Jordan (Derek Catsam, H-Arete)
    -REVIEW: of False Spring (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of False Spring (Brandon Jopko, Baseball Hot Corner)
    -REVIEW: of False Spring (Joel, Dabbler's Journal)
    -REVIEW: of False Spring (Marty Appel, Sports Collectors Digest)
    -REVIEW: of False Spring (Pete Stoler, TIME)
    -REVIEW: of False Spring (Seamheads)
    -REVIEW: of A Nice Tuesday by Pat Jordan (Bob Hoover, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
    -REVIEW: of Nice Tuesday (Leverett T. (Terry) Smith, SABR)
    -REVIEW: of Nice Tuesday (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of A.K.A. SHEILA DOYLE by Pat Jordan (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of A.K.A. SHEILA WEINSTEIN by Pat Jordan (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Chase the Game by Pat Jordan (People)
    -REVIEW: of Chase the Game (TIME)
    -REVIEW: of The Best Sports Writing of Pat Jordan (Bill Littlefield, Only a Game)
    -REVIEW: of The Best Sports Writing of Pat Jordan (Mr. Destructo)
    -REVIEW: of Freelance the Cheat by Pat Jordan (Peter Stoler, TIME)
    -REVIEW: of Reflections of the Game—Lives in Baseball: The Photographs of Ronald C. Modra Pat Jordan (Ron Kaplan, Book Page)
    -REVIEW: of Tom Seaver & Me by Pat Jordan (Pete Croatto, 6/25/20, MarketWatch)
   

TOM SEAVER
    -
    -
    -OBIT: Mets legend Tom Seaver dies at 75 after battle with dementia (Jack Baer, 9/02/20, Yahoo Sports)
    -OBIT: Tom Seaver, heart and mighty arm of Miracle Mets, dies at 75 (Associated Press, Sep 2, 2020)
    -OBIT: Tom Seaver, Hall of Fame pitcher and Mets legend, dies at 75 (ESPN News Services, 9/02/20)
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    -TRIBUTE: Remembering the Terrific Tom Seaver (1944-2020) (Jay Jaffe, September 3, 2020, Fangraphs)
    -TRIBUTE: Mets honor Tom Seaver's iconic drop-and-drive delivery with dirty knees (Joon Lee, 9/03/20, ESPN)
    -ESSAY: Tom Seaver transformed the New York Mets and transfixed their fans (David Schoenfield, 9/02/20, ESPN)
    -ESSAY: Why Tom Seaver was the only poster on my wall (Tim Brown, 9/03/20, Yahoo Sports)
    -ESSAY: Tom Seaver Was the Best Pitcher of His Generation—and Maybe Every Other Generation, Too: The Mets great died on Monday at the age of 75, but his historical record stands up against that of just about any pitcher who came before or after him (Michael Baumann Sep 3, 2020, The Ringer)
    -ESSAY: Tom Seaver and why sometimes you really should meet your heroes (T.J. Quinn, 9/02/20, ESPN)
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Book-related and General Links:

    -REVIEW: of Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life By Bill Madden (Bob Blaisdell, LA Review of Books)