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Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: John Updike on Ted Williams

“After reading this excellent, tiny collection of writing by one of the greats about one of the greats, I’m actively hopeful that the lasting legacy for today’s athletes will be more substantial than the boneyard of their abandoned Twitter pages. Because there’s a place for this kind of sportswriting—the stuff that tells us what it all means, and why it makes us feel so good.”—Daniel Riley, GQ

Overview
News & Views

Overview

Video Video rewind: Updike and Cheever, “together again” on the small screen
August 27, 2021

Video Adam Gopnik: The secret behind John Updike’s productivity
June 7, 2019

Interviews John Updike, Pennsylvania, and “the matter of America”
December 10, 2018

On September 28, 1960—a day that will live forever in the hearts of fans—Red Sox slugger Ted Williams stepped up to the plate for his last at-bat in Fenway Park. Seizing the occasion, he belted a solo home run—a storybook ending to a storied career.

In the stands that afternoon was twenty-eight-year-old John Updike, inspired by the moment to make his lone venture into the field of sports reporting. More than just a matchless account of that fabled final game, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu is a brilliant evocation of Williams’ entire tumultuous life in baseball.

Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of the dramatic exit of baseball’s greatest hitter, The Library of America presents a commemorative edition of Hub Fans, prepared by the author just months before his death. To the classic final version of the essay, long out-of-print, Updike added an autobiographical preface and a substantial new afterword.

John Updike (1932–2009) was born in Shillington, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Harvard College in 1954, and spent a year in Oxford, England, at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. From 1955 to 1957 he was a member of the staff of The New Yorker. He is the author of more than sixty books, including collections of short stories, poems, essays, and criticism. His novels won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle, and the Howells Medal, among other honors.

This special hardcover publication features acid-free paper and a unique design with specifications differing from those of Library of America series titles.
News & Views

Video Video rewind: Updike and Cheever, “together again” on the small screen
August 27, 2021

Video Adam Gopnik: The secret behind John Updike’s productivity
June 7, 2019

Interviews John Updike, Pennsylvania, and “the matter of America”
December 10, 2018

Interviews Four books—and a flawed Everyman—that made John Updike’s name as a novelist
November 16, 2018

News Photos: Debut novelist Kevin Morris gives John Updike his “beautiful due”
March 13, 2017

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ISBN: 978-1-59853-071-1 64 pages

LOA books are distributed worldwide by Penguin Random House

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Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: John Updike on Ted Williams

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