White, but he was raised for the most part by his father, Ernest Angell, an attorney who became head of the American Civil Liberties Union.

[11] His earliest published works were pieces of short fiction and personal narratives, several of which were collected in The Stone Arbor and Other Stories (1960) and A Day in the Life of Roger Angell (1970).

[12] Angell first contributed to The New Yorker while serving in Hawaii as editor of an Air Force magazine; his short story titled "Three Ladies in the Morning" was published in March 1944.

"[14] He first wrote professionally about baseball in 1962, when New Yorker editor William Shawn had him travel to Florida to write about spring training.

Angell said "John had already supplied my tone, while also seeming to invite me to try for a good sentence now and then, down the line.”[4] His first two baseball collections were The Summer Game (1972) and Five Seasons (1977).

[13][22] His daughter Callie, an authority on the films of Andy Warhol, died by suicide on May 5, 2010, in Manhattan, where she worked as a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art; she was 62.

[23] In a 2014 essay, he mentioned her death – "the oceanic force and mystery of that event" – and his struggle to comprehend that "a beautiful daughter of mine, my oldest child, had ended her life".

Mencken running The American Mercury,” adding “Roger was a vigorous editor, and an intellect with broad tastes.”[4] Per his New York Times obituary, "Like his mother, Mr. Angell became a New Yorker fiction editor, discovering and nurturing writers, including Ann Beattie, Bobbie Ann Mason and Garrison Keillor.

[27] He was a long-time ex-officio member of the council of the Authors Guild,[25] and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007.

In so doing he became the preeminent baseball writer of our era, a generous, appreciative, meticulous observer whose descriptions of the game are set forth with grace, brio, and wit.

Angell has Wagnerian range (Honus, that is); he is a master capable of vivid excursions into the profile (see Bob Gibson); he can make games he never saw breathtaking in their excitement (witness the 1986 National League playoffs); and he often reflects on matters philosophical ("The Interior Stadium" is the consummate baseball essay).