The Southpaw

New York: Rinehart & Company, Inc, 1931. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Good. Tod Gould. Format is approximately 5.25 inches by 7.75 inches. [6], 272, [10] pages. Name, address and phone number of previous owner in ink on fep. Cover has some wear and soiling. Some page soiling and marks noted. Donal Hamilton Haines was an Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Michigan and was an alumnus of this University of the Class of 1909 who, during a period of thirty years, had given service of high value and importance to his alma mater. Himself a skilled journalist and an experienced writer of fiction, he was unusually well fitted to counsel and instruct those who aspired to enter the journalistic profession or to engage in creative writing. His vigorous and positive personality, flavored by his keen love of the out-doors and his genial interest in the individual, made him an inspiring teacher and a cherished colleague, whose friendship was prized and whose memory will live long after him. His long series of novels carried the high art of influencing readers to the appreciation of high standards in personal conduct, of constructive social attitudes, and of cultural tastes while they were being engaged in entertainment and adventure. Many of his thousands of readers were thus influenced by the dramatization of cosmopolitan and socially aware points of view. It is significant that his non-fiction book, Luck in All Weathers, published by Farrar and Rinehart in 1941, was selected by the Council on Books in Wartime for exclusive distribution to the armed forces overseas, and more than one hundred thousand of these books were printed and distributed. Derived from comments found on-line: From the title, it appears to be primarily a book about sports, but the main theme is about the development of strong groups among adolescent boys and how it can become destructive of normal social development and structure.
Bob Griswold is a boy with a powerful left arm that makes him a quality baseball pitcher. His father is a civil engineer and wants his son to follow in his footsteps, which means that Bob needs to take many quality courses in math and science. Like most people in the country at that time, the Griswold's are short of money, so when Bob is to attend high school, all they can afford is to send Bob to Hillton Academy. It is a school in a small isolated town, although the teachers are excellent. Greg Elliot is also a student there and he has a group of henchmen, including a muscle man. He will stop at little in order to maintain power and control over the other students and he takes an immediate dislike to Bob. Not being a coward, Bob fights back in the literal and figurative sense while trying to be the team's ace pitcher. It is fundamentally a story about overcoming great and unfair opposition in order to be a success and win the big game at the end.