From Library Journal
Hilton (Eastland: Legend of the Titanic, Stanford Univ. Pr., 1994), a baseball fan since 1936, has assembled an annotated edition of Lardner's fine baseball stories. Lardner, a sportswriter who turned to fiction, is noted for his tales involving Jack Keefe, a semiliterate, vain White Sox pitcher. Featuring 12 general baseball stories in addition to 12 Keefe tales, this volume goes beyond Matthew J. Bruccoli's Ring Around the Bases: The Complete Baseball Stories of Ring Lardner (LJ 6/1/92). Hilton's footnotes and illustrations profile the real-life players and others whom Ring mixed with fictional creations in his vivid fictional depictions of the national pastime. Recommended for most libraries.?Morey Berger, St. Joseph's Hosp. Medical Lib., Tucson
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
“24 humorous and revealing baseball stories [are] collected in this beautifully illustrated volume. . . Offers photos of the real players mentioned in the stories and footnotes about real events. A gem.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Meticulous notes help the modern reader laugh all the harder at lines like ‘Crawford got the luckiest three-base hit I ever see’ by noting that Wahoo Sam Crawford of the Detroit Tigers was the most prolific triples hitter in baseball history.”—New York Times Book Review
“I’ll give this book the ultimate reviewer’s accolade. If it hadn’t been sent to me to review, I would have gone out and bought it anyway. If you’re a lover of baseball or American literature, you will, too.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“After eight decades the tales remain as charming as ever, and the annotations and illustrations will multiply the enjoyment for any reader, new or old.”—American Heritage
“This book is a superb introduction to the work of Ring Lardner for a new generation of readers. . . . Hilton’s annotations are informational and entertaining.”—Antiquarian Bookman
