July 9, 2019
M&A Fans Bid Strine Adieu
John Updike’s “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu” may be the best piece of sportswriting ever produced by somebody not named Heywood Broun, and it was the first thing that popped into my head when I was trying to figure out how to blog about Delaware Chief Justice Leo Strine’s decision to step down.
Maybe it was because like Williams, Strine was a giant in his profession for more than two decades, and like the Spendid Splinter, he was known to be somewhat prickly and notorious for not suffering fools gladly. As a result – again like Ted – Strine has both fervent admirers and rabid detractors. Both men were also never boring, and that’s saying something when one of them churned out 100+ page opinions on a regular basis.
Fortunately for you, for all the similarities that I saw between Ted Williams and Leo Strine, I found none between John Updike & myself. So I’ll make this short – whatever you may think of the guy, Chief Justice Strine has been the kind of towering presence in corporate law that Williams was on the diamond, and we’re all going to notice that he’s not on the bench.
After baseball, Ted Williams became such an expert angler that he was named to the International Game Fish Hall of Fame in 2000. We can only speculate about what’s next for Chief Justice Strine – there are already rumors of a possible run for Governor – but it wouldn’t surprise me if we end up remembering him for more than his tenure in the Delaware judiciary.
– John Jenkins