exactly the easy kind of thing sports reporters routinely pull out of the box when trying to be literary. I'm a little ashamed for Keith that he didn't know that.
Read this:
http://www.amazon.com/second-perhaps-encores-quotation-Fitzgerald/dp/B00093KI8CF. Scott Fitzgerald's quotation 'there are no second acts in American lives' has been used by many journalists in their articles. The quotation has appeared more than 79 times in news articles between 1993 and 1995 alone. Most of these writers have interpreted it as referring to the difficulty of reproducing earlier successes. However, Fitzgerald may have meant this line in the context of the theater to refer to transition periods. Thus, Fitzgerald may have implied that during his time life proceeded too fast to have a transitionary phase between crisis and resolution.In fact, from what I have seen, scholars of Fitzgerald HAVE interpreted this to mean he was making reference to the theater--as in, American lives are like two-act plays, running from a beginning to an end, with no development in the middle. NOT to mean that "Americans get only one chance in life and if you blow it, there's no hope of a comeback." Which is how journalists, especially sports journalists, have been using it for a long time. Just Google it. Everyone and his dog who has written about anyone making a comeback has said "But Fitzgerald was wrong" or "But Fitzgerald obviously never met (so-and-so)."
It's lazy writing--a very lazy reach for an introduction. Keith, of all people, shouldn't be defending it as a rare touch of the "literary" on a sports show. But obviously, it's become so highfalutin and snotty to even mention F. Scott Fitzgerald on a sports show, when all the proles supposedly want is their football, that he apparently feels as if he HAS to.
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