Remembering Irving Howe

When I think of Irving, I think of a Mets game we decided to go to on the spur of the moment one Sunday. It was a hot July day, Doc Gooden was pitching, and fifty thousand other New York fans had the same idea of where they wanted to be that afternoon. The only seats we could get an hour before the game were out in left field.

On a day in which Gooden was being pounded by the Atlanta Braves, our bad seats turned out to be a blessing. We got to see more action than the fans in field b...