2020 Baltimore Orioles: My Assessment

Baseball 2020 season is over.  We hardly knew you!  The Covid virus, as you may know, shortened the season to sixty games.  The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Tampa Bay Rays tp wo the World Series.  The Los Angeles media made a big deal of the Dodgers finally winning after thirty-two years.  Well, my beloved Baltimore Orioles haven’t won the World Series since 1983, which makes it thirty-seven years.  So you can understand how we Orioles fans have suffered.

As you may know they have been rebuilding.  That’s a nice term for losing.  They lost 119 games in 2018 and then 108 in 2019, which is absolutely horrendous.  This year they only lost 35.  Ha!  But it was only 60 game season, not the usual 162.  Still if you project the 35 losses to a 162 game season it would be 94.5 losses.  You can’t have a half game loss.  Shall we round up or down?  Let’s round up, so this year they would have lost 95 games. 

Well, you can see the improvement: 119 to 108 to 95.  The improvement was tangible actually.  It was a fun season, and for most of the season they were on a better pace than losing 95 games.  It was only a late season slump which made the numbers worse. 

This blog post is a summary of comments I made on an Orioles blog, Steve Melewski On The Orioles concerning what was good in 2020 and what wasn’t.  I’m not going to link my comments to a specific posts, just provide them. 

        The Offense:

Yes, from a big picture perspective, I see it the improvement. Offense definitely improved. Loss of Santander and late season slumps hurt. Don't forget Pat Valaika's offensive contributions were big. He wound up with a .791 OPS. I still maintain he should be the starting second baseman.

From an individual player level, let me just rate them in this way:

Improved or exceeded expectations:

Santander, Iglesias, Mountcastle, Nunez, Valaika, Mullins.

As expected:

Sisco, Severino

 

Disappointing or under achievers:

Alberto, Ruiz, Chris Davis

 

Not enough data:

Stewart, Hays, Urias,

Severino could easily have been in the exceeded expectations category if it weren't for the last three weeks. I guess he fell into where he would have been expected. He had to bi-polar seasons. I guess in statistics that would be a double-humped distribution. Which is the real Sevvy? I think it's more of the beginning of the year.

I could have put Sisco in the disappointing column, however his OBP was excellent, which pushed his OPS into respectability despite his low batting average. I guess a walk is as good as a hit. Since Adley will not be ready next year I think we go with the same catching duo.

DJ Stewart is an interesting one to look at. He only had 88 ABs and his batting eye is superb. He definitely has power and that's a good thing. I doubt he will ever contend for a batting title, but I could see Stewart develop into about a .230 hitter with high OBP and a respectful OPS. I think he just needs more time.

Mullins turned into a really nice surprise. That's a respectful batting average, and he got his slugging up too. He's definitely a major league hitter from the left side, which makes him a platoon player probably. His numbers would be a little better if he could improve his OBP. And I have to say, he is a joy to watch in the outfield. He can run down shots to the outfield with anyone.

Nunez improved slightly but I'll take that power any day. He was struggling a little down the stretch. Was he playing hurt? It seemed that way. I really see Nunez as the next Edwin Encarnacion. 30-40 homer power, drives in runs, and has a respectable batting average. He hits the ball hard, so I can see that improving.

Hays showed signs again of breaking out but injured again. Is this going to happen every year?

I don't know what to say about Ruiz. Good fielder with some power but low batting average, low OBP. Can he get better? He's still only 26, but time is running out for him.

We can definitely upgrade at third base.

Hanser Alberto is my biggest disappointment. At the end of last year going into this year I was a skeptic on his hitting, despite hitting over .300 last year. Then he started out on fire and I reversed myself and said he was for real. And then it was just downhill disappointment. He does not have high exit velocity, which makes his hitting somewhat lucky. He does not have power. And he does not walk. He is not for real. He wound up with a .698 OPS. Anyone on the team with a below .700 OPS has to be consider needing to be replaced.

And the person to replace Alberto at second is Pat Valaika. What a find! Will he repeat? I don't know, but he's earned the starting job at second in my opinion. He needs to bone up on his defense but if he can focus on one position I think that would help. The more he played the better he got. A .791 OPS and hit in the clutch! I fell in love with Pat.

I don't really have anything to add regarding Santander, Iglesias, Mountcastle.

And Chris Davis is self-explanatory. With Mancini out and expanded rosters, there was a place for him this year. He’s got to be off the team next year.

Those are my concluding thoughts on the hitters. I'll get to the pitching when Steve has a post on that.

###

        Starting Pitching:

Did the starting pitching really improve?  I guess slightly.  True, the starter’s ERA went down a half run but remember this was only a sixty game season.  Pitchers tire over 162 games and we didn’t that this year.  Plus we had a better outfield defense which could have saved some runs, and, perhaps the important hidden statistic, the improved bullpen could have saved runs because (1) the starting pitcher could be taken out earlier before more runs were scored, and  (2) the bullpen could have prevented inherited runners from scoring.  I think the improved ERA is deceptive. 

Also having Cobb for a full year for a change was a plus.  His 53 innings would have projected to 143 for a real season.  Would he have lasted the entire 162 games?  I don’t know but he’s as frail as my 86 year old mother who now is averaging a hospital visit every six months.  Looking ahead, ideally Cobb could be a good trade piece for a team competing.  Unless we’re competing next year, I would trade him if a reasonable offer comes our way this winter.  He ended the season healthy.  He may not be by next year’s trade deadline.

John Means is for real.  Once he overcame his personal issues which had to be a major distraction and then overcame some minor injuries, he pitched even better than last year.  He’s an elite pitcher who is a real number one ace.  I don’t follow the business aspects of baseball but we might want to sign him long term now if it will be a bargain in the future.

Wojciechowski is gone.  I liked Wojo but he’s proven he’s not a major league pitcher.  He’s probably a AAA starter who can get called up if one or two of our starters go down with injuries. 

Akin and Kremer were young, bright spots.  I can see Akin being a mid-rotation starter.  Kremer has the potential for better than mid.  Now that’s potential, but I would not be surprised if they regress.  They only had a handful of games each in the majors.  Can they sustain a full regular season?  I’m skeptical of course.  You have to be.  Right now both have to be considered back end starters for next year but we better have some backup plans.

Jorge Lopez was a good pickup and for a while it looked like he realized the potential he was supposed to have.  Then he got rocked and his ERA ended no different than his historical over six runs per game.  You have to hope that his well-pitched games were more indicative of his future than his ending ERA, but on that too I would be skeptical.  He’ll have his chance once again next year.

LeBlanc didn’t prove out.  Milone was a nice pickup and a nice flip for a trade.  Is he a free agent again?  Should we consider re-signing him if he is?  I would.  We’re going to need arms for a 162 game season.

Right now we have Means, Cobb, Lopez, Akin, and Kremer as starters.  We’re going to need at least eight over the course of the year given Akin and Kremer have never been through 162 games.  Who else?  Eschleman I guess.  He improved this year.  There’s nothing impressive about his stuff but he was decent.  You could give Zimmerman a try as starter.  He didn’t get a full chance yet.  Valdez maybe as starter.  Some of the younger arms will be moving up next year but I doubt in the first half. 

We need to sign starters just so we have enough arms to make it through a 162 game season.  Starting pitching is our weakest part of the game.  It’s what prevents us for competing for a wildcard spot.

###

        Relief Pitching:

The bullpen was excellent this year.  I could see it coming together from the developments at the end of 2019.  Going from the 2019 ERA of 5.79 to 3.90 may be the single most important stat for our improved record this year.  Relief pitchers in today's game pitch over 50% of the total innings.  Having a good to great bullpen is an absolute must.

Can we get better?  I think so.  I would take Paul Frey's, Tanner Scott's, Dillon Tate's, Travis Laskin's, and Shawn Armstrong's numbers next year exactly as they were this year.  But I can also see Scott's, Tate's and Laskin's numbers improving still.  Cole Solser is not a closer - he was in the wrong role - but with better situational calls he should improve, and perhaps improve quite a bit.

Hunter Harvey needs to have an injury free season.  He's going to be known as the bullpen version of Alex Cobb.  He's got great stuff.  He definitely could be the shutdown closer every team needs.  I have to believe we will see much more of a contribution from Hunter next year.  Dillon Tate too needs to get injury free.  Hunter and Tate have potentially dominating stuff, as does Tanner Scott.  Those three have the potential to be elite relief pitchers.

I also liked how Brandon Kline pitched this year.  I think he showed us he can pitch in the majors.  He just needs to rack up more innings and experience.

What can you say about Valdez?  He's a surprise to all.  Will he be our closer again?  Why not?  He got the job done to my surprise.  I don't know if he'll improve but I hope he doesn't come down to reality.

As good as the bullpen was this year, I think it could be even better next year.

If we're so rich in bullpen assets, do we trade some to improve other parts of our game?  We do have more pitchers coming out of the minors trying to push their way up.  It's probably a good possibility we will trade some.

### 

Below are my answers to Steve Melewski’s “10 Questions for O’s Fans.” 

The Questions:

1) Anthony Santander was voted Most Valuable Oriole by the media that cover the club. Would he have gotten your vote or would it be someone else?

 

2) Cole Sulser led the club with five saves. Who will lead the 2021 O’s in saves?

 

3) Who are two or three pitchers yet to make the majors you can foresee getting a shot to make at least one start next year?

 

4) Which two teams will play in the World Series and who wins?

 

5) We saw a 16-team field this year. How many teams will make the playoffs next year?

 

6) Will Chris Davis be on the roster on opening day?

 

7) Predict the month and year that Adley Rutschman makes his major league debut.

 

8) Should Major League Baseball continue to place a runner at second base for extra-inning games?

 

9) Who will make the most starts batting leadoff for the Orioles in 2021?

 

10) In what year will the O’s return to the playoffs?

My answers:

1) No. I believe Jose Iglesias should have been the MVO. They both had shortened seasons because of injuries but they both wound up with nearly the same number of at bats. Iglesias had a much higher OPS and his defense at short is worth way more than Santander's in right. And Iglesias was the veteran who the team turned for leadership.

2) I'm going to go with Tanner Scott, but I can also see Dillon Tate being the closer.

3) Hard to say since there wasn't really a minor league season this year. I guess Baumann. Maybe Lowther. Maybe one of the recent pickups from the trades.

4) Dodgers will beat the Rays in seven.

5) 16 teams making the playoffs is a disgrace. Three division winners plus one wildcard for each league, and the wildcard can be selected by a one game playoff between the two best records that did not win a division. I think of that as one wildcard winner. But if you want to count that as two, then it's five teams from each league.

6) I can't see it. No.

7) September 2021

8) Hell no. It's unearned. Why don't you make it so every inning start this way if it's so interesting and exciting. Bull dung. It's a corruption of the game.

9) Cedric Mullins. He's an above average left handed hitter.

10) 2021 if starting pitching shocks us. It's really what's holding us back from a .500 record. Realistically, 2022.

One re-assessment:

After reading everyone’s comments, I have been persuaded to change one, number seven. Yeah, it’s unlikely Adley makes the majors next year. Probably 2022 and by the All Star game.

Sunday Meditation: Think On These Things

From St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

 

Phil 4:8.  Think about these things, the exhortation says.  What things does he mean?  Can you name some things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, and worthy of praise?  The Blessed Mother comes to mind.  What else?

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, Post 3

This is the third post on Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.

You can find Post #1 here.  

Post #2 here.  

 

Book 2, Chapter 1

Part 1: Samgrass and Sebastian have returned from the Levant and after Christmas Samgrass provides the family a projection presentation of the photographs.  In time it is revealed that Sebastian escaped Samgrass at the Levant to drink away most of moths there.  It is also revealed that Sebastian escaped Samgrass again once in England over Christmas, again to soak in alcohol.  The family plans to fox hunting one day, and Sebastian rides off escaping the hunt by drinking at an inn with money given to him by Charles.  Charles is found out and leaves Brideshead in disgrace. 

Part 2: Back in Paris returned to his art studies, Charles has Rex suddenly turn up at his apartment.  He had been taking Sebastian to Zurich to a doctor but Sebastian had given him the slip.  Rex and Charles go out to dinner to discuss the events at Brideshead.  Lady Marchmain has forgiven Charles since Cordelia herself snuck drink to Sebastian.  Rex and Julia have become engaged and have made plans to marry.  Later Charles learns that they have married in a manner opposite to their plans.

 

Book 2 Chapter 2

Charles as narrator, from a vantage point of many years later, informs the reader of the events of Julia’s history from those Oxford days to her marriage.  He starts with the difficulties of Julia making a proper marriage given her class and Catholicism.  Despite his unsuitability, Julia found herself attracted to Rex Mottram, and after some crafty and perhaps dishonest courting from Rex, the two were engaged, despite significant opposition from Julia’s mother.  After the secret engagement went public, Lady Marchmain forbid the marriage and was going to take Julia away, when Rex contacted Lord Marchmain for his permission which was granted.  Rex decides he will convert to Catholicism for the grand wedding and for the family and takes on instruction in the faith.  Just as the wedding is weeks away, Bridey finds out that Rex has been married before and divorced and so cannot marry in a Catholic Church.  What was planned to be a semi-royal wedding devolved into a rushed and “squalid” one.

Charles has learned of all this from Julia, who at some point in the future from the Oxford days had confided to Charles all her nitty personal details. 

### 

I found the instruction of Rex into the Catholic faith to be hilarious.  Here’s Fr. Mowbray telling Lady Marchmain and Cordelia about one of their lessons.

 

“Take yesterday. He seemed to be doing very well. He learned large bits of the catechism by heart, and the Lord’s Prayer, and the Hail Mary. Then I asked him as usual if there was anything troubling him, and he looked at me in a crafty way and said, ‘Look, Father, I don’t think you’re being straight with me. I want to join your Church and I’m going to join your Church, but you’re holding too much back.’ I asked what he meant, and he said: ‘I’ve had a long talk with a Catholic—a very pious, well-educated one, and I’ve learned a thing or two. For instance, that you have to sleep with your feet pointing East because that’s the direction of heaven, and if you die in the night you can walk there. Now I’ll sleep with my feet pointing any way that suits Julia, but d’you expect a grown man to believe about walking to heaven? And what about the Pope who made one of his horses a Cardinal? And what about the box you keep in the church porch, and if you put in a pound note with someone’s name on it, they get sent to hell. I don’t say there mayn’t be a good reason for all this,’ he said, ‘but you ought to tell me about it and not let me find out for myself.’ ”

 

“What can the poor man have meant?” said Lady Marchmain.

 

“You see he’s a long way from the Church yet,” said Father Mowbray.

 

“But who can he have been talking to? Did he dream it all? Cordelia, what’s the matter?”

 

“What a chump! Oh, mummy, what a glorious chump!”

 

“Cordelia, it was you.”

 

“Oh, mummy, who could have dreamed he’d swallow it? I told him such a lot besides. About the sacred monkeys in the Vatican—all kinds of things.”  (pp. 223-224)

 

Waugh has this ability to be both serious and comedic at the same time.

###

When Charles admits he has given Sebastian money to go drink in Book 2, chapter 1 and Lady Marchmain reprimands him, Charles takes leave of Brideshead for he thinks at the moment will be the last time, he sums up his life to that point.  It’s an inflection point in the novel and worth quoting.  I’ll start with that morning with Sebastian.

 

Next morning I said to Sebastian: “Tell me honestly, do you want me to stay on here?”

 

“No, Charles, I don’t believe I do.”

 

“I’m no help?”

 

“No help.”

 

So I went to make my excuses to his mother.

 

“There’s something I must ask you, Charles. Did you give Sebastian money yesterday?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Knowing how he was likely to spend it?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I don’t understand it,” she said. “I simply don’t understand how anyone can be so callously wicked.”

 

She paused, but I do not think she expected any answer; there was nothing I could say unless I were to start all over again on that familiar, endless argument.

 

“I’m not going to reproach you,” she said. “God knows it’s not for me to reproach anyone. Any failure in my children is my failure. But I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how you can have been so nice in so many ways, and then do something so wantonly cruel. I don’t understand how we all liked you so much. Did you hate us all the time? I don’t understand how we deserved it.”

 

I was unmoved; there was no part of me remotely touched by her distress. It was as I had often imagined being expelled from school. I almost expected to hear her say: “I have already written to inform your unhappy father.” But as I drove away and turned back in the car to take what promised to be my last view of the house, I felt that I was leaving part of myself behind, and that wherever I went afterwards I should feel the lack of it, and search for it hopelessly, as ghosts are said to do, frequenting the spots where they buried material treasures without which they cannot pay their way to the nether world.

 

“I shall not go back,” I said to myself.

 

A door had shut, the low door in the wall I had sought and found in Oxford; open it now and I should find no enchanted garden.

 

I had come to the surface, into the light of common day and the fresh sea-air, after long captivity in the sunless coral palaces and waving forests of the ocean bed.

 

I had left behind me—what? Youth? Adolescence? Romance? The conjuring stuff of these things, “the Young Magician’s Compendium,” that neat cabinet where the ebony wand had its place beside the delusive billiard balls, the penny that folded double, and the feather flowers that could be drawn into a hollow candle.

 

“I have left behind illusion,” I said to myself. “Henceforth I live in a world of three dimensions—with the aid of my five senses.”

 

I have since learned that there is no such world, but then, as the car turned out of sight of the house, I thought it took no finding, but lay all about me at the end of the avenue.

 

Waugh, Evelyn. Brideshead Revisited (p. 193-5). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.   

 

It’s a remarkable description of a loss of innocence.  After the rejection of Sebastian’s friendship, after the crises of being reprimanded by his mother, Charles gives provides a metaphor of rising from under the ocean and poking up over the water’s surface and finding the “light of common day.”  The enchanting magic of youth, the illusion of wonder disintegrates as he looks back at that romantic castle for the last time.  The magic is gone and the common is about him.

###

My Reply to Kerstin, who didn’t see it as a loss of innocence:

"I had left behind me—what? Youth? Adolescence? Romance?" “I have left behind illusion," "I have since learned that there is no such world."

 

How else to read that but loss of innocence?

 

Irene Replied, also unsure if it was a loss of innocence:

I am not sure if "loss of innocence" is the term I would use, but maybe it fits. It is certainly the first time we see Charles having to face moral responsibility in a clear way. Even though he knew that he was asked not to supply Sabastian with money or alcohol for his own good, even though he recognized the harmful effect alcohol was having on Sabastian's life, he gave him the money. Whether we attribute his motivation to the inability to resist peer pressure or the desire to be liked by his friend or a moral laziness that took the easy way out in the situation, he did what he knew would harm his friend and the family that was offering him hospitality. Unlike the self justification or righteous indignation of a child when punished for an offense, this time, he understood the magnitude of his offense

 

My Reply to Irene:

I get where you see that Irene, but I'm not so sure that's how Waugh intended it. I'm not sure Charles feels he was all that wrong to give Sebastian money for drink. Even Cordelia later gets him alcohol.

 

What I think Charles feels is that it has been a no win situation. If he didn't give Sebastian money, then his friendship might have ended. If he does, he upsets Sebastian's family. If he lets Sebastian drink, Sebastian is hurt from the alcohol. But if he doesn't then Sebastian is hurt emotionally, maybe spiritually. This impossible situation I think is why he feels a loss of innocence.

 

At least that's how I read it, but this is a very hard novel to feel confident in one's reading

 

Mark Replied, also unsatisfied with characterizing it as a loss of innocence:

Is disillusionment equivalent to loss of innocence? Are only the innocent subject to illusions and the desire for illusionary things? Is innocence equivalent to living in an illusionary state? I don't find myself ready to come down one one side of that question or the other. It seems perhaps to identify innocence too much with lack of knowledge.

 

My Reply to Mark:

Good point there is a distinction between disillusionment and loss of innocence. Disillusionment is Charles' word. That's not necessarily Waugh speaking, but the character. Perhaps the scene is no longer fresh in my mind, but what exactly is he disillusioned from? That Sebastian was his friend? Possibly.

 

I used "loss of innocence" based on this:

 

I had left behind me—what? Youth? Adolescence? Romance? The conjuring stuff of these things, “the Young Magician’s Compendium,” that neat cabinet where the ebony wand had its place beside the delusive billiard balls, the penny that folded double, and the feather flowers that could be drawn into a hollow candle.

 

“I have left behind illusion,” I said to myself. “Henceforth I live in a world of three dimensions—with the aid of my five senses.”

 

Leaving behind youth is leaving behind innocence. And he has a progression: youth, adolescence, romance. Is Charles over ruling that first thought or amplifying it? Living in a "world of three dimensions" implies a hard reality of life has hit him. I think that is a loss of innocence. So while disillusionment and loss of innocence are not completely synonymous, I think Charles means both. I think he means he has lost his sense of innocence and the means of that loss is disillusionment.

 

My Reply to Mark, who brought up Waugh’s use of alcohol in another novel:

 Mark wrote: "I find this business of Charles being expelled for giving Sebastian drink (or the means to obtain it) particularly interesting because he uses this device again in the Sword of Honor trilogy when G...

Is this Waugh doubling down on the theme that physical and psychological health are of little consequence compared to spiritual health?"

It could be yes. But it also strikes me as the author's values are not in line with general society. Was Waugh an alcoholic himself? I don't know. I have seen places where he drank heavily. It could be that his view of alcohol was different than his general society. I'm not speaking of our society's view today. I don't get the feeling that Waugh sees drinking to being drunk as a negative thing. Sort of like in Hemingway.

My other thought on that is that he's playing off a Catholic trope of the time. Catholics were supposed to be free in taking alcohol while Protestants restrained. In fact Baptists ban it outright even today. Prohibition in the US was pushed by Protestant groups. You see this in Hemingway too. I think this was mentioned in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.

My Reply to Frances, also on the alcohol scene:

Frances, the term "enabling" is a contemporary term and outside of Waugh's ken. But it doesn't strike me that Waugh thinks giving alcohol to an alcoholic is not necessarily a bad thing. It strikes me that his values on this subject run contrary to most.

In Memoriam: Thomas Howard

This is a little retrospective on Dr. Thomas Howard, author, scholar, English professor, conservative man of letters, and theologian who passed away on October 15^th.   In a most beautiful obituary in First Things, titled “Thomas Howard, RIP,” Kenneth Craycraft relates the heart of the man.  

 

Thomas Howard, who passed away on Thursday at the age of 85, made the journey from catholic evangelical to evangelical Catholic as gracefully and admirably as any who have made the journey. Though the adjective and noun changed places, Tom’s heart for the gospel never wavered. Neither did his gracious and generous friendship with all the evangelicals and Catholics for whom his influence was deep and abiding.

 I can’t say I was familiar with Thomas Howard for what he’s mostly known for, and that is as a theologian and famous convert to the Catholic Church from Evangelism.  I knew of Howard not from his religious writings nor of his famous conversion (which I did learn about later), but of his work on T.S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets. Howard’s Dove Descending is the definitive book on Eliot’s great poem.  More on that later.

There are plenty of retrospectives on Howard for what he’s mostly known for.  From Crises Magazine, Michael Warren Davis in “The Last Victorian” writes:  

 

His orthodoxy was beyond question. Before he was one of the most popular and influential theologians in the Catholic Church, he was one of the most popular and influential theologians in the Evangelical movement. The Howards were a family of missionaries, among the most respected Protestant dynasties in the country. His conversion cost him his job at Gordon College and many of his friends. It certainly wasn’t a decision he made lightly. When he finally set off for Rome, it was because he knew he couldn’t really be at home anywhere else.

 

Getting to know him a bit through conversation and his books, what impressed me most was his love for Jesus Christ and the Christian faith, at once profound and childlike. He was fascinated by our great patrimony, and he wanted nothing more than to share it with everyone who would listen.

 

In Catholic World Reporter, Dale Ahlquist, who would later also follow Howard’s conversion into the Catholic Church writes in “In the Place of the Tiger” of the impact of Howard’s conversion:  

 

I knew Thomas Howard a lot longer than he knew me. As an Evangelical Protestant, I had been reading his articles for many years in Christianity Today, a magazine that was standard reading fare in the home where I grew up. I got my own subscription as soon as I went to college, and read it faithfully for many years thereafter. But in all those years, one article still stands out from all the others. It was 1985. I will never forget the headline: “Well-known Evangelical Author Thomas Howard Converts to Catholicism”. It was the first of a three-parter devoted to what was an earth-shaking event in Evangelical circles. And I don’t think I can recall being more unsatisfied with anything I’ve ever read. I was shocked. I wanted to know how and why this had happened. I had a thousand questions, and nothing that I read there – including even an interview with Howard – provided adequate answers.

 

His friend, and also fellow convert, David Mills had perhaps the best tribute in the Catholic Herald, in an obituary titled, “RIP Thomas Howard: 1935-2020.”  

First, a description of the man from Mills’ first encounter.

 

I met him in the late seventies, as a newish and secularish Christian. He invited me to a small reading group he hosted called Beer and Bull. The first book I remember us reading was an Orthodox work called The Way of the Ascetics, all of which was new to me, and a little strange. I also remember being amazed that so lively a man, who loved living so much, took asceticism so seriously. Only later did I see that his deep prayer and liturgical life created the lively man. Behind the effortlessness with which he seemed to move through the world lay a great deal of sacrifice and discipline and self-giving.

 

What a great name for a book club, the “Beer and Bull.”  It beats the boring name (The Catholic Thought Book Club) of my book club.  Second, Mills zeroes in on what made the man so compelling, and that had to do with a certain fairness to observation and thought.

 

Though a man of clear beliefs, he was not an ideologue: because he looked. Not a salesman or a preacher, but a man who shared what he saw and loved — and therefore a very good salesman and preacher.

 

“Because he looked.”  How many of us have a built in bias and don’t really look at issues.  A true intellectual should look.  Third, Mills summarizes the man’s legacy.

 

Thomas Howard lived a life of integrity and honor — and less importantly, achievement — whose character influenced an astonishing number of people and therefore the people they influenced, in a knock-on effect that will continue for generations. It’s not many people of whom that is true. The world saw a very gifted man, but people who knew him saw first a very good man.

 

As I said at the opening, I know of Thomas Howard from his book, Dove Descending: A Journey into T. S. Eliots Four Quartets.  Let me provide three short excerpts, which I hope captures the man, his thought process, and his elegant writing style.  First from the Preface.

 

In my own view, this sequence of four poems—or this one single poem: it is not easy to settle even this elementary question—represents the pinnacle of Eliot’s whole work.  He worked on it (them?) over a period of several years in the late 1930s and early 1940s, after a long period of having produced a number of dramas.  The work (let us settle for the singular, without arguing the point too shrilly) lies on the hither side of the Himalayan watershed from the early poetry that had made him the giant of English poetry in the twentieth century: Eliot had converted to Orthodox Christian belief several years before he embarked on Four Quartets.  (Ignatius Press Edition, p. 14-5)

 

Three lovely and elegant sentences which reflects the elegance of the man described by Warren Davis, Ahlquist, and Mills.  When I searched around for excerpts of Howard’s writing, what struck me the most was the beauty of his prose.  Second, looking at Eliot’s poem from an overarching view in the chapter Preliminary Remarks, Howard had this to say.

 

If we can venture, at mortal risk, to attempt a theme for it all (readers will sigh, having heard that word too many times from their English teachers), we might say that it all has something to do with the odd business of being mortal, that is, intelligent creatures existing here and in time, when all the while we are profoundly dissatisfied with this dismal sequence of past, present, and future.  Time, in other words.  The trouble with time is that it drains things away.  We mortals have “intimations of immortality” and wish things would stay put, but they don’t.  Houses burn down.  Fields are bulldozed into highway interchanges (“bypasses”, in British English).  We die and are buried.  (p. 20, italics are Howard’s emphasis)

 

Why of course!  So simply put.  If you have not read the Four Quartets you will not realize how that perfectly captures the heart of the poem, a poem of the highest modernist complexity that has baffled many a reader.  I have spent years reading that poem and could not find the succinct words to explain it.  I have read other literary criticism of the poem, and no one has put it so simply and so accurately.  No one, I dare say, has conceptualized the totality of the poem like that.  And now you know.  So, if you haven’t, go read the poem!

Finally I want to highlight a section of Howard’s commentary on a particular passage in Four Quartets, this from the second quartet titled East Coker.  First the passage from Eliot’s poem.

 

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,

The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,

The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters,

The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,

Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees,

Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark,

And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha

And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors,

And cold the sense and lost the motive of action.

And we all go with them, into the silent funeral,

Nobody's funeral, for there is no one to bury.

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you

Which shall be the darkness of God.  (lines 102-114 of East Coker of the Four Quartets)

 

And now for Howard’s commentary.

 

Readers should have no difficulty with the first nine lines.  When men die they go into the dark.  That would seem patent.  The jolting thing about Eliot’s particular listing of death’s conscripts is the (typically Eliotonian) “unpoetic” nature of the roster.  All these successful citizens.  The Almanach de Gotha is the register of European royalty and nobility.  The Dirctory of Directors (there is one) seems particularly ironic. 

 

And of course we all go with them.  But what about this “silent funeral, / Nobody’s funeral, for there is no one to bury”?  Well, for a start, most funerals are silent, more or less.  Not much clashing and clanging of cymbals and so forth.  But “Nobody’s funeral”?  You have to have a body for a funeral, surely?  Yes, but the point is that by the time you tot up all the funerals there are, you find yourself concluding that whose funeral any particular funeral is unimportant.  They are all the same.  Dead men are, as far as this world is concerned, Nobody.  “No one to bury”?  Again, this duke or director or distinguished civil servant has joined the anonymous ranks of the dead.  We are burying a nonentity.  (p. 77, italics are Howard’s emphasis)

 

Well, Thomas Howard has now gone into the “dark, dark” himself.  He is not a “nobody.”  He was a brilliant, courageous, and elegant man.  Let us hope that he now has passed the darkness and entered the eternal light.  May he rest in peace.

Postscript: If you haven’t realized, the name of this blog, Ashes From Burnt Roses, is taken from Eliot’s Four Quartets.