I am a life long fan of Jack Kerouac and thought will the biographies written about him every significant fact about his life was known and I am a bit gobsmacked.

Massachusetts, the state of his birth claims Kerouac as their own and Florida where he lived at the time of his death claims him as well. Never seen San Francisco claim him as one of their own before. I think Paris would have the better claim if they were to make one.

Since this was written before 1978 and never published, it's not protected by copyright, yes?

Ah, how wonderful, to stumble upon lost Kerouac like this, tucked away not in some Yale archive but in the collection of Paul Castellano of all people, as if the road had detoured briefly through the Five Families. That it reads like a missing chapter from On the Road makes the find all the more mythic, like a Polaroid from a dream you forgot you had.

But this, for some reason, reminds me that Kerouac was also a devoted baseball mind. Not just a fan, but a proto-fantasy league commissioner before the term existed, meticulously tracking invented teams and players in private box scores. Kerouac, a fantasy baseball writer.

And he wasn't alone: Corso batted lines like fastballs, Ferlinghetti cheered from the dugout of City Lights, and Ginsberg, ever the cosmic catcher, enjoyed the sport. Baseball wasn't a pastime but a parallel Beat narrative, complete with innings, errors, and the occasional poetic balk and haiku.

I've been re-reading Kerouac lately (LOA has a nice collection of novels in a single volume). His prose is jumps from bebop riffs (On the Road) to elegiac praise of hiking in the woods/mountains (Dharma Bums). The characters (like them or not) are well drawn and always interesting. My hitchhiking days are long gone and I don't suppose this mode of transportation obtains much in the US anymore, which I think is unfortunate as it is (or was) a great way to see the country and meet a lot of people.

Am I the only one who thought On the Road was a completely awful, poorly written book? I also hated Catcher too so maybe the 'American Greats' just aren't for me..