The Collected Baseball Stories

by Charles E. Van Loan, Trey Strecker

Between 1909 and 1919 Charles Emmett Van Loan published an amazing nine collections of short stories, including four baseball books— The Big League (1909), The Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm (1912), The Lucky Seventh (1913) and Score By Innings (1919). Grantland Rice, in the Introduction to Score By Innings, described Van Loan as "sport’s greatest fiction writer and soul (sic) historian," and claimed that "no other man has ever unfolded the romance and humor of baseball half as well." This volume brings together Van Loan’s baseball stories, including those in The Big League ("The Crab," "The Low Brow," "The Fresh Guy," "The Quitter," "The Bush League Demon," "The Cast-Off," "The Busher," "A Job for the Pitcher," "The Golden Ball of the Argonauts"); The Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm ("The Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm," "Sweeney to Sanguinetti to Schultz," "Little Sunset," "The Loosening Up of Hogan," "The Phantom League," "The Comeback," "Behind the Mask," "McCluskey’s Prodigal"); The Lucky Seventh ("A Rain Check," "The Mexican Marvel," "The Good Old Wagon," "For Revenue Only," "The Bachelor Benedict," "‘Butterfly’ Pitcher," "Will a Duck Swim?", "Crossed ‘Signs,’" "Won Off the Diamond," "The Pitch-Out"); and Score By Innings ("The National Commission Decides," "Puite vs. Puite," "Chivalry in Carbon County," "The Squirrel," "IOU," "The Bone Doctor," "His Own Stuff," "Excess Baggage," "Nine Assists and Two Errors," "Minster Conley"! ). Also included are the previously uncollected stories "Mathewson, Incog." and "The Indian Sign."

471 pages, Paperback

First published March 24, 2004

About the author

Charles Emmett van Loan was born on 29 June 1876, at San Jose, California, the son of Richard and Emma Van Loan. His father was a captain in the Salvation Army and his mother an adjutant (a rank that has since been discontinued). As young boy in San Bernardino, Charles was often called upon to beat the drum at Salvation Army functions.

Charles began as a writer for the Los Angeles Morning Herald and later the Los Angeles Examiner. In New York he worked as a sports writer on the Evening Journal and the American, before becoming associate editor for the Saturday Evening Post. When Charles left the New York American he was able to bring in his friend, Damon Runyon, to replace him as sports writer.

During his career Charles, whose passion was baseball, became known as one of America's most popular sports writers, humorist and writer of short stories. He was a prolific contributor of sports stories for leading magazines, in particular the Saturday Evening Post. According to the Philadelphia Public Ledger, Charles had the largest following of men readers of any magazine fiction writer. The Bonehead" (1911), "The Ten-Thousand Dollar Arm and Other Tales of the Big League" (1912), and "Art and the Dollar" (1919) were among his most popular stories.

Charles Emmett van Loan died of chronic nephritis on 2 March 1919, while on business trip to Abington, Pennsylvania. It was thought at the time that a broken arm suffered in an automobile accident in 1914 may have contributed to his early death. He was survived by his wife, the former Emma C. Lenz (1880-1954), a daughter Virginia and his son Richard. Charles' father collapsed and died of a heart attack upon hearing of his son's passing.