By Will Lingo
July 2, 2003

There are difficult assignments. And then there are impossible assignments. And summing up the life of someone you knew well for nine years is damn near impossible. Unfortunately, that’s what’s left for us to do at Baseball America, with the sudden death of John Royster.

John—JR to everyone who knew him professionally—actually worked at Baseball America for 14 years, or about a third of his life. When he left last year to pursue other interests, he had served BA longer than all but two people, one of whom is Allan Simpson, who started the magazine.

He died on June 29 at the age of 43, much too young and much, much too soon. He apparently suffered a heart attack on the field after one of his adult-league baseball games.

He had a variety of job titles here, but his main role was steadfast: JR was the keeper of BA style and accuracy. What he loved more than anything else was sitting down with a page and poring over every line. Red marks on a page in his distinctive, meticulous handwriting are familiar to anyone who ever worked with him.

He also was the ultimate utilityman (we love nothing more than baseball metaphors here) who had interest in and would undertake any role assigned to him, which even went as far as trying out for Team USA in 1991 for a story. He might have had as much interest in each corner of the baseball world we cover as anyone at BA.

“I just like giving people something that will interest them—baseball news they can’t get anywhere else,” he once wrote. “It’s the same thrill a teacher gets from seeing a student take an interest in something.”

What I think I liked best about JR, though, is that he knew himself, an unfortunately rare quality today. When once asked about his management of time, for example, JR wrote: “I shift from one task to another about as smoothly as a ’48 Hudson with no second gear.”

Baseball America is a place that engenders closeness, especially among the editorial staff. So JR’s death sent shockwaves through the BA fraternity. Just about everyone who ever worked here worked with him, so there are a lot of memories to recall.

There’s the time a pregnant woman in labor and her husband drove into the BA parking lot in a car that was breaking down. JR put them in his Honda Prelude and got them to the hospital just in time. Perhaps it gives you some insight into his character that he never made a big deal about that story. When we were recounting memorable BA moments for our 20th anniversary a couple of years ago, in fact, JR only brought it up after I asked him about it. He remembered the story, of course, and he even remembered the family’s name.

I wasn’t there, but I have no doubt that JR made an instant connection with the couple. He loved to chat with people, and in an interesting paradox was a great conversationalist even though I think many people would regard him as a quiet person.

The thing was, JR didn’t just talk to hear himself talk. If he didn’t have anything to say, he didn’t say anything. But if he was interested in what you were talking about, he’d tell you everything he knew.

And that went far beyond baseball. When I said he left to pursue other interests, it wasn’t a euphemism. He felt like he had done all he could do at BA, and he was ready to try something else. His mother died a year ago, and he left BA a couple of months later. Since then he dealt with her estate, tended to other members of his family who needed attention, traveled and worked a little bit at a small local newspaper—as a copy editor, of course.

He said with mock exasperation in his last day at BA that he had a list of things to do around the house “as long as my right arm,” but he clearly relished having the time to do them. I’m sure he did a good amount of cooking in his down time, as well as working on his model railroad.

Most important, JR got more time to spend with his wife of 10 years, Anne. He talked recently about a great weekend trip they had to Greensboro. That’s only about an hour from Durham and wouldn’t get most people excited, but he spoke enthusiastically about the great hotel they stayed in and the great museums they visited.

In fact, JR was pursuing a job with the North Carolina Museum of Art at the time of his death, so he and Anne spent a full day at the museum getting more familiar with it, having lunch and just being together.

The next day he was pursuing his one true passion after his family: baseball. JR had been the catcher for a team in a local Roy Hobbs League for years, and though he never had any pretense of being a star, it was something that was important to him.

Team members said he was having one of the best games he had ever played, but he complained of heartburn during the game. He called Anne and asked her to bring his heartburn medication out to the field, which she did. He took it but collapsed after the game and could not be revived.

In the way that we try to find any comfort in the sorts of tragedies that shake us to our core, we can at least say that when JR died, he was on the baseball field and his wife was at his side. It’s cold comfort right now, though. JR was about to start the next chapter of his life, and he and Anne were embarking on their second of what should have been many more decades together.

“I’m just glad I met him,” she told us a couple of days after his death.

We are too, Anne.

You can contact Will Lingo by sending e-mail to willlingo@baseballamerica.com.

A graveside service for John Royster will be held on July 5 in Henderson, N.C. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Campus Box 3365, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3365; Vance Granville Community College, attention: Pat Graham, P.O. Box 917, Henderson, NC 27536; or to Easter Seals, 2315 Myron Drive, Raleigh, NC 27607