The John Lardner Reader: A Press Box Legend's Classic Sportswriting

by John Lardner, John Schulian (Editor), Dan Jenkins (Foreword by), John Schulian (Introduction)

Overview

This collection marks the return to print of John Lardner, one of America’s press box giants, a classic stylist whose wry humor and tireless reporting helped elevate sportswriting to art. The brilliant W. C. Heinz called Lardner “the best of us.” This book shows why.

Lardner applied his singular touch not only to his era’s icons—Joe Louis, Ted Williams, Satchel Paige—but to the scamps, eccentrics, hustlers, and con men in the shadow of sports. Whether in snappy columns or leisurely magazine pieces, Lardner held sport of every description up to the light, forever changing the way people wrote, read, and thought about their heroes, from superstars to scrappers. These forty-nine pieces represent sportswriting at the top of its game.

John Lardner (1913–60), the son of legendary humorist Ring Lardner, was a columnist for Newsweek; a frequent and much-honored contributor to the New Yorker, True, and Sport; and the author of It Beats Working, Strong Cigars and Lovely Women, and White Hopes and Other Tigers. John Schulian’s work has been included in Best American Sports Writing and Sports Illustrated’s Fifty Years of Great Writing. His Twilight of the Long-ball Gods: Dispatches from the Disappearing Heart of Baseball is available in a Bison Books edition. Dan Jenkins is the author of Jenkins at the Majors: 60 Years of the World’s Best Golf Writing, from Hogan to Tiger.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803230477
Publisher:	Bison Original
Publication date:	10/01/2010
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	1,134,476
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

John Lardner (1913–60), the son of legendary humorist Ring Lardner, was a columnist for Newsweek; a frequent and much-honored contributor to the New Yorker, True, and Sport; and the author of It Beats Working, Strong Cigars and Lovely Women, and White Hopes and Other Tigers. John Schulian’s work has been included in Best American Sports Writing and Sports Illustrated’s Fifty Years of Great Writing. His Twilight of the Long-ball Gods: Dispatches from the Disappearing Heart of Baseball is available in a Bison Books edition. Dan Jenkins is the author of Jenkins at the Majors: 60 Years of the World’s Best Golf Writing, from Hogan to Tiger.

Table of Contents

Foreword Dan Jenkins ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction John Schulian xv

Part 1 In a Class by Themselves

Down Great Purple Valleys 3

"The Haig": Rowdy Rebel of the Fairways 19

Part 2 Bats and Brawls

Babe Herman 39

Good-by to All That 49

Memoirs of Old Satch 52

Most Blood for Your Money 55

The Home of the Bean and the Kid 58

The World's Richest Problem Child 61

Hard-way Bill on the Mississippi 64

They Walked by Night 67

Baseball Eye 77

Passing of an Unlicensed Hero 80

The All-American Rookie 83

Ball Fans and Other Primates 86

Memoirs of a Mild Fanatic 89

Razor Blades Amok 92

The Space Revolution 95

Part 3 Cauliflower Alley

Morgan on Jaws 101

Bag Hits Baer 104

The Boy Bandit 107

Upsy Downsy 110

Death of a Simian and a Scholar 113

The Case of the Chilly Giant 116

Mr. Percentage 119

Life with Eddie 122

The Sweet and the Tough 125

John Arthur Johnson 128

Fun at the Scales 131

Now Pitching for Bartlett's 134

When in Doubt, Hang the Judge 137

No Scar, No Memory 140

Part 4 Cautionary Tales

The Life and Loves of the Real McCoy 145

Mysterious Montague 161

Battling Siki 169

Part 5 Other Precincts

The Roller Derby 189

Sleeper for '44 197

The Old Postgraduate Try 200

Rooney's Ride 203

An Angel on Horseback 206

Little Bill 209

Strong Cigars and Lovely Women 212

What Was That Again? 215

Mr. Jacoby and the National Folly 218

The Best of the Browsers 221

Maybe in Memoriam 224

The Life of T-ts Sh-r 227

What Price Olympic Peace? 230

Part 6 Two for the Money

Titanic Thompson 241

The Sack of Shelby 258

Editorial Reviews

"Lardner, who unfortunately died 50 years ago a couple of calendars short of his 50th birthday, fortunately has Schulian in his corner and reintroducing his work to a generation of scribes who could benefit from the opportunity to step back and reassess their craft."—Tom Hoffarth, Los Angeles Daily News

Los Angeles Daily News - Tom Hoffarth

"If this collection of 49 sports pieces is a true measure of John Lardner's talent, it's almost scandalous that the work of Ring's oldest son has not appeared in book form for some 50 years. . . . A collection well worth the wait."—Alan Moores, Booklist

Booklist - Alan Moores

"The John Lardner Reader is a terrific book because the best of John Lardner is extraordinarily good. And nobody should dismiss even the worst of him. . . . It is a great joy to see his work recollected and republished."—Bill Littlefield, Boston Globe

Boston Globe - Bill Littlefield

"In these days of chest-thumping anthropoids on ESPN, it does one's heart good to read Lardner (son of Ring) once again and to be reminded that there really was a golden age of sportswriting."—Henry Kisor,The Recluctant Blogger

The Reluctant Blogger - Henry Kisor

"Fortunately for us, John Schulian, a distinguished sportswriter in his own right. . . has put together an invigorating sample of Lardner's best sportswriting, [The John Lardner Reader is] a generous and representative blend of Lardner's Newsweek columns, newspaper stories and freelance magazine pieces."—Alex Belth, SI.com

SI.com - Alex Belth

"While his fellow sportswriters were perfecting new techniques in the line of hero worship, Lardner was exploring sporting celebrity as performance, a way of hiding private obsessions and defeats, and a love, above all, of money and the high life. That he wrote about what he saw with such a light, clean touch doesn't diminish the basic darkness of his vision. Lardner, his mind on a time already past, saw LeBron James, the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Alex Rodriguez coming. He was appalled."—Tim Marchman, Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal - Tim Marchman

"In these days of chest-thumping anthropoids on ESPN, it does one’s heart good to read Lardner (son of Ring) once again and to be reminded that there really was a golden age of sportswriting."—Henry Kisor,The Recluctant Blogger

— Henry Kisor

The Reluctant Blogger

"If this collection of 49 sports pieces is a true measure of John Lardner’s talent, it’s almost scandalous that the work of Ring’s oldest son has not appeared in book form for some 50 years. . . . A collection well worth the wait."—Alan Moores, Booklist

— Alan Moores

Booklist

"The John Lardner Reader is a terrific book because the best of John Lardner is extraordinarily good. And nobody should dismiss even the worst of him. . . . It is a great joy to see his work recollected and republished."—Bill Littlefield, Boston Globe

— Bill Littlefield

Boston Globe

"Lardner, who unfortunately died 50 years ago a couple of calendars short of his 50th birthday, fortunately has Schulian in his corner and reintroducing his work to a generation of scribes who could benefit from the opportunity to step back and reassess their craft."—Tom Hoffarth, Los Angeles Daily News

— Tom Hoffarth

Los Angeles Daily News

"While his fellow sportswriters were perfecting new techniques in the line of hero worship, Lardner was exploring sporting celebrity as performance, a way of hiding private obsessions and defeats, and a love, above all, of money and the high life. That he wrote about what he saw with such a light, clean touch doesn’t diminish the basic darkness of his vision. Lardner, his mind on a time already past, saw LeBron James, the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Alex Rodriguez coming. He was appalled."—Tim Marchman, Wall Street Journal

— Tim Marchman

Wall Street Journal

"Fortunately for us, John Schulian, a distinguished sportswriter in his own right. . . has put together an invigorating sample of Lardner’s best sportswriting, [The John Lardner Reader is] a generous and representative blend of Lardner’s Newsweek columns, newspaper stories and freelance magazine pieces."—Alex Belth, SI.com

— Alex Belth

SI.com

"The people at the University of Nebraska Press have done a good thing. They have published a collection of pieces by John Lardner."—Stan Isaacs, The Columnists.com

The Columnists.com

“John really was funny, but not like his old man. He wasn’t funny like anybody else. He was funny like John Lardner, a bona fide original.”—Red Smith, Pulitzer Prize–winning sports columnist

Red Smith

“Quite simply, the best sports columnist I have read.”—Roger Kahn, author of The Boys of Summer

Roger Kahn

“Reading Lardner late at night in a comfortable chair is (as Walt Kelly once said of the man himself) to enjoy solitude in the best of company.”—Pete Hamill, legendary New York columnist and author of North River

Pete Hamill

“Shut down all the sportswriting classes and seminars and workshops and hand out this book instead. Lardner is all you need.”—Rick Reilly, ESPN the Magazine columnist, author of Sports from Hell

Rick Reilly