{"id":1599,"date":"2009-05-16T12:43:07","date_gmt":"2009-05-16T19:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2009\/05\/on-the-pitch\/"},"modified":"2009-05-16T12:43:07","modified_gmt":"2009-05-16T19:43:07","slug":"on-the-pitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2009\/05\/16\/on-the-pitch\/","title":{"rendered":"On The Pitch"},"content":{"rendered":"

from the New York Times<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Another Side of Kerouac: The Dharma Bum as Sports Nut<\/nyt_headline><\/h1>\n

<\/p>\n

New York Public Library, Berg Collection, Jack Kerouac Archive<\/p>\n

<\/span>Jack Kerouac\u2019s fantasy baseball team cards, circa 1953-56.\u00a0More Photos ><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

By CHARLES McGRATH<\/p>\n

<\/nyt_byline><\/p>\n

Published: May 15, 2009<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Almost all his life\u00a0Jack Kerouac<\/a>\u00a0had a hobby that even close friends and fellow Beats like\u00a0Allen Ginsberg<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0William S. Burroughs<\/a>\u00a0never knew about. He obsessively played a fantasy baseball game of his own invention, charting the exploits of made-up players like Wino Love, Warby Pepper, Heinie Twiett, Phegus Cody and Zagg Parker, who toiled on imaginary teams named either for cars (the Pittsburgh Plymouths and New York Chevvies, for example) or for colors (the Boston Grays and Cincinnati Blacks).<\/p>\n

He collected their stats, analyzed their performances and, as a teenager, when he played most ardently, wrote about them in homemade newsletters and broadsides. He even covered financial news and imaginary contract disputes. During those same teenage years, he also ran a fantasy horse-racing circuit, complete with illustrated tout sheets and racing reports. He created imaginary owners, imaginary jockeys, imaginary track conditions.<\/p>\n

[ click to read at the NYT<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from the New York Times Another Side of Kerouac: The Dharma Bum as Sports Nut New York Public Library, Berg Collection, Jack Kerouac Archive Jack Kerouac\u2019s fantasy baseball team cards, circa 1953-56.\u00a0More Photos > By CHARLES McGRATH Published: May 15, 2009 Almost all his life\u00a0Jack Kerouac\u00a0had a hobby that even close friends and fellow Beats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literary-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}