Annotated Baseball Stories of Ring W. Lardner, 1914-1919

George W. Hilton is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has been a baseball fan since 1936 when his father took him to his first game at Comiskey Park.

• Part I. The Jack Keefe Stories: 1. A busher's letters home; 2. The busher comes back; 3. The busher's honeymoon; 4. A new busher breaks in; 5. The busher's kid; 6. The busher beats it hence; 7. Call for Mr. Keefe! 8. The busher re-enlists; 9. The battle of Texas; 10. Along came Ruth; 11. The courtship of T. Dorgan; 12. The busher pulls a Mays; Part II. The Individual Short Stories: 13. My roomy; 14. Sick 'em; 15. Horseshoes; 16. Back to Baltimore; 17. Alibi Ike; 18. Harmony; 19. The poor simp; 20. Where do you get that noise? 21. Good for the soul; 22. The crook; 23. The hold-out; 24. The yellow kid.

"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 "Already timeless pieces of fiction in their own right, Lardner's stories benefit from the historical context that Hilton's annotations and pictures provide."—Choice