W. C. Heinz and the M*A*S*H Connection

I have mentioned before how my favorite long-form nonfiction is the baseball essay. Reading those essays leads to all kinds of places. I was discussing these types of pieces with a friend of mine, and he recommended a recent book put out through The Library of America called The Top of His Game: The Best Sportswriting of W. C. Heinz edited by Bill Littlefield. I’d never read any of Heinz’s pieces before, but I am having a delightful time going through this book. His pieces tend to be short: 800 words, compared the the baseball essays that I most enjoy. But Heinz’s voice carries the day in these pieces, which cover all manner of sports, from baseball, to boxing, or horse-racing, and beyond.

But the most remarkable thing I’ve learned in this book is something about Heinz himself. I am also a big fan of M*A*S*H. The book, upon which both the movie and the series was based, was written by Richard Hooker. Well, it turns out that Richard Hooker is a pseudonym for pair of writers. One is H. Richard Hornberger, a doctor who served in Korea. The other writer was–you guessed it–W. C. Heinz.

I thought that was a pretty cool connection, when I learned of it in the intro to the book.