(From the distant past)
Kent Morgan
writes (or wrote) a sports column for a paper in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but spends
most of his time puzzling over what to do with all the books piled on
his furniture and floor and stored in his garage. More bookcases are not
the answer as he has no room for them.
Th
e Southpaw - Donal Hamilton Haines
I came across a copy of this juvenile novel at a recent charity book sale and quickly grabbed it for my baseball fiction collection. I didn't remember much about the story, but knew I had owned and read it in my youth. First published by Rinehart in 1931, Comet Books started reprinting it in 1949 and that's the edition I found. The book includes illustrations by Harold Minton and several panels on the back cover along with brief text provided the potential reader with an idea about the storyline.
"All Hillton Academy hated baseball, and every other sport except for hazing freshmen. For games bored Greg Elliott, a senior who had the whole school under his thumb. Then Bob Griswold arrived, like a one-man revolution. Bob loved baseball and refused to be bossed. That got him into a knock-down fight with Butch, Elliott's bully. And into much worse trouble with Elliott himself. Finally this undercover battle for leadership blazed into a revolt that shook Hillton Academy to its foundation."
The Southpaw with a cover price of .35 was #16 in a series of 20 mystery, sports, career and adventure tales published by Comet. Among the titles are The Green Turtle Mystery by Ellery Queen Jr., The Spanish Cave by Geoffrey Household and Sue Barton, Student Nurse by Helen Dore Boylston. The series also includes two other baseball books, Batter Up by Jackson Scholz and Bat Boy of the Giants by Garth Garreau, that I also read in my youth. My copies could be hiding from me in boxes in my garage.
6 comments:
I went through a period in my teens of reading sports books--both fiction and non-fiction. The High School Library had dozens of baseball, football, and basketball books on display.
I read some of the essays by Roger Angel and other sports writers but the only real novel was BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY, I think.
I mostly read sports fiction (including the likes of STRANGE BUT TRUE [sic] AUTO-RACING and BASEBALL STORIES volumes from Scholastic *koff*) as a kid, not caring enough about the pros to read the sports pages nor other more or less real nonfiction, despite being in Cub Scout league baseball and being a good hitter (and miserable fielder) as a 10yo. The house my parents bought in Hazardville, CT came with a pool table, so I was OK for a kid at billiards as well. Have occasionally continued to read sports fiction as an adult.
Been about 15 years since we've heard from Kent?
I'm still around and writing my bi-weekly Memories of Sport column for the Winnipeg Free Press Community Review. In fact, I just turned on my computer to do some research and saw the old book review. And I still haven't solved my book problem although I am making an effort to donate to both our Children's Hospital Book Market and Friends of the Library. However, I do expect to add to my collection on Saturday when I drive out to Gimli on Lake Winnipeg for the annual Rotary Club Book Sale. Gimli is the largest Icelandic community outside of Iceland so some Icelandic book treasures sometimes show up. The Tergesen's general store also has an excellent books section that I like to check out. In addition to the collection in my home in Winnipeg. I also have many books and magazines collecting dust in our cottage in Matlock south of Winnipeg. Many years ago I hauled a massive collection of Esquire magazines from the 1960s and 1970s to the cottage and they are still there.
That should have read south of Lake Winnipeg. The smoke from all the wildfires must be getting to me.
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