Voice of our age

 So now the news comes down that James Earl Jones has died at the full-to-the-top age of 93, and it takes me right back. Takes me back to a particular gray morning in a particular minor-league ballpark, James Earl Jones sitting in a chair and the children sitting around him on cushions because the grass is still wet from the previous night's rains.

Now James Earl Jones opens a book, and he begins to read.

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day ...

And here again is the voice, that rumbling, sonorous, familiar instrument. It spans years, that voice. It echoes down through time itself, through epochs and dynasties and civilizations long gone to dust -- a voice as ancient as the pharaohs, and as fresh as yesterday.

On this particular day, the voice is not so much reading as tolling Ernest Lawrence Thayer's great evocation of baseball's past, "Casey at the Bat," to 22 children in Memorial Stadium in Fort Wayne. They're the winners of a reading contest sponsored by Verizon, on whose behalf Jones is in town. Now they listen, fidgeting a bit as kids will, and presently a couple of the Class A Fort Wayne Wizards -- not much more than kids themselves -- drift into the dugout to listen, too.

Because here's the thing, people: James Earl Jones was the voice of our age more than any other, the soundtrack to an entire nation's shared cultural experience. He was, after all, the voice of Darth Vader and Simba's father and Terrance Mann in another great baseball anthem, "Field of Dreams." He was the voice of an entire news network (CNN), and of a communications giant (Verizon).

He played Muhammad Ali's spiritual descendant Jack Johnson on Broadway. Played the blind former Negro Leagues player Mr. Mertle in "The Sandlot." Played Conan the Barbarian's nemesis Thulsa Doom, a worse baddie than Darth Vader,.

When he came to Fort Wayne in 2001, though, it was Terrance Mann you heard in your head, because it was a ballpark and it was baseball he came to celebrate. "Field of Dreams" was Kevin Costner's film, but it was Jones who defined it in that soliloquy "Field" devotees can recite by heart:

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time ... 

Well, sure. And James Earl Jones?

All he did was mark our time.