One major overlooked aspect of Jack Kerouac was his fantasy baseball league, which he adopted at the age of 12 and maintained until his death in 1969.
Born in Massachusetts to French Canadians, Kerouac elected early on to participate in one of the great American immigrant experiences of the 1930s: that of baseball.
Yet Kerouac was no ordinary fan. Years before his famous novels inspired an entire generation, Kerouac delved into a world so vivid, so holistic, and so engulfing, that the fact that so little remains of it on paper - most of it disappearing with its creator - is heartbreaking.
Recruiting real baseball players (Lou Gehrig), notables of the day (Pancho Villa), and plenty of fictional players, Kerouac filled up his league, and then set about with the most remarkable game.
Throwing marbles, toothpicks, and homemade dice against a wall 40 feet away, Kerouac would dutifully record the results, and then analyze a collection of 25 handwritten cards to see the result - of each pitch. Everything was accounted for, from foul tips to passed balls to sinking liners in shallow right field.
He diligently produced game after game, and occasionally wrote newsletters for the result (which he gave to his mother) which explained the day's or week's games in an exaggerated Ring Lardner style, the custom writing ideal of the day.
It is said that after Kerouac moved to Mexico City, he would play the game every day, never writing down the results. He would just sit and roll the dice and grunt and peer at his cards and nod or smile, keeping track of an imaginary team playing an imaginary game for the ages.
Tolkien had his Silmarillion; Lewis Carroll his Wonderland; and Kerouac had his Summer League.
All of Mr. Kerouac's fantasy baseball literature (including several of the newsletters, his handwritten cards, and some of his childhood baseball cards) can be found at the New York Public Library, along with many of Mr. Kerouac's correspondence, manuscripts, and other memorabilia.