Award-winning journalist, Richard Ben Cramer, dies
Jan 8, 2013, 11:20 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) – Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Richard Ben Cramer, whose narrative non-fiction spanned presidential politics and the game of baseball, has died. He was 62.
Cramer died Monday at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore from complications of lung cancer, his agent, Philippa Brophy, said. Cramer lived with his wife, Joan, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Cramer won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting from the Middle East while with the Philadelphia Inquirer.
His other notable work included a best-selling biography of New York Yankees great Joe DiMaggio, an influential magazine profile of another baseball star, Ted Williams, and a critically acclaimed, behind-the-scenes account of the 1988 U.S. presidential race, “What It Takes: The Way to the White House.”
Cramer was known for an in-depth reporting style that involved spending significant time with the subjects he profiled and recreating scenes with vivid color and dialogue. His 1986 profile of Williams in Esquire magazine traced the arc of the hitter’s career _ including his personal relationships and feelings on fame _ from early days to post-baseball life in the Florida Keys, where, Cramer wrote, locals might run into him at the tennis club, coffee bar or tackle shop.
“It was forty-five years ago, when achievements with a bat first brought him to the nation’s notice, that Ted Williams began work on his defense. He wanted fame, and wanted it with a pure, hot eagerness that would have been embarrassing in a smaller man. But he could not stand celebrity. This is a bitch of a line to draw in America’s dust,” Cramer wrote.
His book on the 1988 presidential race delved into the lives and careers of the candidates, explaining how eventual winner George H.W. Bush had early in his political career resisted the urging by advisers to speak openly about his war record or the death of his young daughter from leukemia _ personal topics he later discussed movingly during his presidential campaign.
Vice President Joe Biden, who ran for the White House in 1988 and was featured in the book, said Cramer was an unmatched talent.
“It is a powerful thing to read a book someone has written about you, and to find both the observations and criticisms so sharp and insightful that you learn something new and meaningful about yourself,” Biden said in a statement.
White House spokesman Jay Carney called Cramer the greatest political journalist ever and said “What It Takes” captured affectionate portraits of the candidates.
“They are appreciative of each individual, their qualities, and their failings. But everything is done with great affection for the process, and the individuals. It’s a joy to read. So, if you haven’t already, go get it,” he said.
Cramer’s 2000 biography of DiMaggio, “Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life” made best-seller lists and offered a complex, multi-faceted portrayal of his life and career.
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