the age of 76 in this still-new year . John Updike , his literary brilliance aside , was prolific almost beyond belief -- he wrote more than 50 books , and hundreds upon hundreds of essays , short stories , articles , poems and works of criticism . All those careful words , year after year , decade after decade . But of all the sentences Updike ever wrote , there is one that I have long encouraged people to carry around with them -- if not literally tucked into their wallets , then somewhere in their heads and in their hearts . In that sentence of Updike 's lies the secret to a lot of things -- including the secret that answers : Why do we watch ? The sentence appeared in Updike 's 1960 nonfiction piece about Ted Williams 's last game for the Boston Red Sox . That piece is famous for how Updike explained Williams 's refusal to come out of the dugout and acknowledge the cheering , crying fans after his home run in his final at-bat : `` Gods do not answer letters . '' But it is another sentence in the story that
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Why do we watch ? Bob Greene says athletes like Lebron James show us the difference between ordinary effort and excellence . The question applies not just to Sunday 's NBA All-Star Game , although that is the immediate case in point . The outcome of the game is not important -- few people remember who wins the All-Star Game from year to year . The players , while attempting to win , do it with barely concealed smiles on their faces . All-Star weekend is mostly a class reunion for basketball 's elite . But all the games , in all the seasons , in all the big-time sports leagues -- what is the real reason we keep on watching ? You might think that we 'd finally grow weary of caring , with headlines about Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds , with the sports pages often reading like the business pages -LRB- contract disputes and stadium bond-issue negotiations and salary arbitration -RRB- , with police-blotter details sometimes pushing aside the box scores . Why do we watch ? The answer may be found in a single sentence written by a man who died at