Editor’s Note
Sports & Sensibility

Former baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti (Father of Paul) liked to note that “paradise” comes from an ancient Persian word meaning “enclosed park or green.” Ballparks exist, he said, because there is in humanity “a vestigial memory of an enclosed green space as a place of freedom or play.”  Preserving this space, and cultivating it, as the world constantly encroaches, has fueled much of the magic and romance of sports, and of Galaxy Brain. Beyond a respite from the frenzy we have to navigate, they help crystallize individual moments and draw out the heroic, the beautiful, the miraculous, the bewildering, the experiences and memories that nothing else can touch. They provide a narrative arc for reconstructing the past and making sense of the present, a storyline we can follow as we fumble along.  

Michael’s writing has been this kind of refuge and transcendent experience, for himself and for us. Whether because he became intimately acquainted with illness at such a young age or he was just born with this sensibility, Michael sought the divine in the quotidian, the eternal in the fleeting, the hilarious in everything. Whether it was his son Jones noting that snowflakes don’t make a sound when they land, remembering catching a flyball at center field in little league, creating an entire fictional correspondence with the author Margaret Atwood, or imagining the inner life of Mr. Met, Michael did more than merely observe beauty, and joy, and the absurd, he was an agent in creating them.  With a single comment on a photo you posted he could transform not only your entire day, but he could open up a new world and make you feel that all was possible. He could actually draw that door on the wall that suddenly became real, that opened onto this enclosed green space of freedom and play. If you didn’t know him, this may all seem highly hyperbolic. It is not. 

I don’t gravitate towards unifying theories, but it certainly does not feel like a coincidence that the opening day(s) of baseball coincide with the day we commemorate Michael’s passing. Yet this issue, and the continuation of Galaxy Brain, are not meant as a memorial, but as an incarnation of Michael’s sensibility. We hope that Michael Murray’s Galaxy Brain ensures that his presence is given regular form, that there is no break in continuity from feeling his special brand of gimlet-eyed whimsy and deep humanity. 

I chose Sports & Sensibility as the theme for this first issue because sports served as a vehicle for all of these things for Michael and so many others.  As any seasoned sports fan understands, sports  is grounded mostly in failure (baseball most notoriously, as its biggest heroes succeed only 1/3 of the time),  but from that rises the miraculous. The moments of unadulterated exalted joy are born from the incongruity of a baseline of defeat, or merely the prosaic, giving way to the unexpected. Baseball is the sport most replete with possibilities – you may see something you have never seen before at any given moment. The baseball season is so long and you become so familiar with its cast that a drama with several acts is ensured.  The sport’s rhythm also thrums along at its own pace, unfolding with events rather than the dictates of a clock. As Chris Robinson wrote in his beautiful essay for this issue, “Truth is, life is mess(y)—like baseball. Unlike hockey, which has a set time limit, baseball can stretch on indefinitely. I see life that way.” 

Sports also serves as the arena for the superhuman and their feats. And yet, their individual personalities and parasocial proximity bring us as close to the divine as feels possible.  Whether it’s the dynamism and smile of Carlos Alcaraz, the impossibly iconic and charming Ali, the total mastery of Lebron, or the unlikely and utterly likeable Mets of last season (and hopefully this one), we are invited along for the ride and connect in one of the last spaces left for collective experience.  There is a lot of anger and frustration in being a sports fan, but like every cynic, it’s because there is actually the most unrelenting young optimist inside, so often disappointed but still always chasing the ideal.  

Playing sports — giving your body and mind over completely to this other dimension where everything else ceases to exist, is another part of this particular enclosed green, this paradise. For some of us it was the only path to feeling like we belonged, to integrating into the world around us. For others it was actually quite the opposite.

 In this issue you will find reflections on all these facets of sports and its various sensibilities. We hope it’s the enclosed green where Galaxy’s Brain’s community of writers, artists, and readers continue to find refuge and play and cultivate what Michael created for Jones and for all of us.