LOWELL, Mass. (AP) – A homegrown literary icon will be remembered next month with an honor usually reserved for sports heroes: a bobblehead doll.
The first 1,000 fans arriving at an Aug. 21 game between the Lowell Spinners and Williamsport Crosscutters of the Class A New York-Penn League will receive bobbing likenesses of Jack Kerouac.
The giveaway, in partnership with the English department at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, is part of “Jack Kerouac Night” at LeLacheur Park.
“It’s quite an honor. Not everyone gets a bobblehead made of them,” said Spinners publicist Jon Goode.
The eight-inch doll features Kerouac holding a pen and notebook and standing on a copy of “On The Road,” his best-known work.
“It’s unusual to say the least to have a sports team get involved with a literary figure,” said Hilary Holladay, director of the Kerouac Conference on Beat Literature. “Kerouac was always a lightning rod for pop culture, and the two are colliding yet again, this time at home plate. It fits.”
Before he was a writer, Kerouac was a baseball fan and athlete. He excelled in football and track at Lowell High School, spent the winter of 1942 as a sportswriter for The Sun of Lowell, and played football at Columbia.
John Sampas, Kerouac’s brother-in-law and the executor of his literary estate, plans to attend the game, Goode said.
Seats are sold out, but standing-room tickets are still available.
AP-ES-07-28-03 1947EDT
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