Frank Merriwell

Abstract

There have been only three characters in history who ever could call their shots with uncanny exactitude, Superman, Frank Merriwell and Babe Ruth.-Arthur Daley, New York Times, April 28, 1947Only one man could have done, if not exceeded, what Derek Jeter did on that glorious day he entered the 3,000-hit club, the only Yankee ever to join. His name is Frank Merriwell, and by now time has dimmed his memory for most everyone except young Americans, who have no memory of him at all. When Jeter hit his momentous home run, I announced he had just done a Frank Merriwell, and the young fellow standing next to me yelped: 'Who the devil is Frank Merriwell? I never heard of him. Who does he play for?'-Sid Dorfman, The Star-Ledger, July 13, 2011Acentury prior to Jeter's heroics, no true-blue American of any age would have been unfamiliar with Frank Merriwell. Indeed, Merriwell's roots as an iconic character in mainstream literature predate his very existence. They may be traced to the mid-19th century, and the rising popularity of the dime novel: inexpensive, largely melodramatic adventure tales featuring the exploits of detectives, cowboys, explorers, and other action heroes. What then followed was the emergence of a dime novel sub-genre: stories tailored to young boys that spotlighted the derring-do of humble-but-valiant lads battling clearly defined villains. A number of these focused on baseball. Zane Grey, a ballplayer and wannabe big leaguer in his youth, penned The Short-Stop (1909), The Young Pitcher (1911), and The Redheaded Outfield and Other Stories (1920). With an assist from ghost- writer John Neville Wheeler, Christy Mathewson a quartet of cleverly titled Matty Books: Pitcher Pollock (1914), Catcher Craig (1915), First Base Faulkner (1916), and Second Base Sloan (1917). Another Mathewson volume, Won in the Ninth (1910), was described in its advertising as a story with live characters written by the man who knows more than any other about the men who are playing the game to day. Prospective customers were encouraged to buy it for your boy ... but read it yourself.Writing as Hal Standish, Harvey King Shackleford authored stories featuring the ball-yard (as well as non-sports) triumphs of Fred Fearnot, first introduced in 1898 in Frank Tousey's Work and Win: An Interesting Weekly for Young America. The series con- tinued after Shackleford's death in 1906, with George W. Goode inheriting the ghost- writing. Typical baseball titles include Fred Fearnot and His No-Hit Game; Or, Striking Out the Champions (1906), in which Standish casually notes, All the batsman could get off Fred's delivery was an easy pop fly; Fred Fearnot at Second Base; Or, Winning Out in the Ninth (1907); Fred Fearnot and The Scrappy Nine; Or, Having a Peck of Trou- ble (1907); and Fred Fearnot and the Rival Players; Or, Finishing a Feud (1908). The 14-book Baseball Joe series, marketed between 1912 and 1928, centered on the derring-do of Baseball Joe Matson, first on his town team and then in prep school, at Yale University, in the minor and major leagues (with the Cardinals and Giants), in the World Series, and on a world tour. The Baseball Joe books were a product of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a publishing factory founded by Edward Stratemeyer, which pro- duced a wide range of children's fiction. The series' author, Lester Chadwick, was a pseu- donym, so named in homage to Henry Chadwick, the early baseball pioneer. Some of the Baseball Joe tales reportedly were penned by Stratemeyer himself, while others were written by the prolific Howard R. Garis, best recalled as the author of the Uncle Wiggily books.But then, neither Baseball Joe Matson nor any other fireballing hero was as cel- ebrated as Frank Merriwell, he of Fardale Academy, Yale, and the world beyond. When discussing Merriwell, however, it is essential to note that last-second game-winning clouts were but one of his talents. …