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JERRY, SONIA and HUNTER LANSCHE

We appear to be The Big Leg Family, don't we?

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My name is Jerry Lansche. I live in High Ridge, Missouri, with my lovely wife Sonia and our nineteen-year-old son Hunter. A lifelong baseball fan, I live and die Cardinal baseball twelve months a year--or at least I used to, back when fans thought baseball was a game (and not the multimillion dollar business it's always been). Insofar as the other sports are concerned, I am an avid Kansas City Chiefs fan. (No e-mail, puhleeze, about that Indianapolis game.) My politics are conservative and usually, but not always, Republican. I didn't vote for Hillary and Bubba in 1992 and didn't vote for any of the presidential candidates in 1996. I am a passionate believer in individual liberty.

Listed below are the three previous books I've written, along with some critical acclaim. Hey, if I don't toot my own horn, who will, eh?

PREVIOUS BOOKS BY JERRY LANSCHE

The Forgotten Championships: Post-Season Baseball 1882-1981

Glory Fades Away: The Nineteenth-Century World Series Rediscovered

Stan the Man Musial: Born to Be a Ballplayer

PRAISE FOR THE FORGOTTEN CHAMPIONSHIPS

From the SABR Review of Books: "Baseball scholars and researchers will benefit from the compilation of this information, particularly the ever-evasive data from nineteenth-century contests. The volume will continue to serve its main purpose, to help remember 'forgotten championships."

PRAISE FOR GLORY FADES AWAY

Robert Tiemann, author of Cardinal Classics: "Little has been written about the World Series of the nineteenth century. The deficiency has now been remedied, however... The book's chief strength lies in the sketches of players and other baseball personnel...Also illuminating are stories that tell of all-night card games on trains, post-game fetes for players at local opera houses, and intercity rivalries stirred up by these series...The old-time character of the other baseball cities comes though in the text as well...The writing is smooth and entertaining, and the book vividly conveys the rough-and-tumble nature of nineteenth-century baseball."

Steve Gietscher, archivist, The Sporting News: "Jerry Lansche's specialty is digging out the details of long-neglected games. In his first book, The Forgotten Championships, he accumulated a wealth of data...In this second book, carefully constructed and nicely designed, he has concentrated on the original World Series competitions, resurrecting them in much greater depth and detail."

William Curran, author of Mitts and Big Sticks: "Now St. Louisan Jerry Lansche has brought to life for us those nineteenth-
century autumn show-downs in an admirably researched and lively book, Glory Fades Away...Because Lansche works within the framework of just fifteen post-season series, he has room for extensive close-ups of many of the colorful figures who played in the formative years of organized baseball...All come vividly to life in Lansche's narrative of baseball a century ago."

PRAISE FOR STAN THE MAN MUSIAL

USA Today Baseball Weekly: "One of baseball's true nice guys gets the star treatment in this look at his Hall of Fame career."

The Library Journal: "A warm account of Musial's life and feats. Recommended..."

Mort Olshan, The Gold Sheet: "There's not a publishing house in America featuring a finer line of sports books than Taylor Publishing of Dallas. Their latest releases--biographies of Stan Musial and Ty Cobb--are simply brilliant exemplars of sports literature."

Jeff Nathan, Los Angeles Daily News: "More of a character study than a conventional sports biography...There are anec-
dotes aplenty in this joyous tribute to excellence and decency."

Richard Miller, Sports Collectors Digest: "Solid evidence of Stan's on-field exploits and off-diamond integrity."

Publishers Weekly: "Telling a story of triumph after triumph, which makes for a solid...biography."

Michael Skube, Cox News Service: "A fond portrait of a player loved for who he was."

Don Hayes, Fowl Ball: "Not tedious, dry stuff, but a well-written narrative style that at the right moment zooms in for a close-
up shot that helps the reader paint incredibly vivid mental pictures...Readers will enjoy Lansche’s chronicle...I recommend it without reservation."

Wes Lukowsky, Booklist: "Musial was a gentleman and an ambassador of the sport...So what does that leave for Lansche to write about? Hitting streaks, pennant races, big games, clutch hits, injuries, playing hurt, and, well, just baseball. It's possible that Lansche didn't set out to write a fluffy, ain't-he-swell biography. Some folks--like Musial--just lead that kind of life."

COMMENTS FROM EDITORS

Jonathan Karp, Random House, Inc.: "Lansche has a good and fluid style for sportswriting and, perhaps more impressively, displays extensive knowledge of baseball history."

John Radziewicz, Harcourt Brace: "Lansche’s writing has vitality."

Edward Walters, Bob Adams, Inc.: "I like his writing."

Anybody out there have any good ideas for my next book? Always looking for suggestions. Sometimes I thinks my agent is under the impression that I can write only baseball, but I could do other non-fiction--really! Looking for a topic that hasn't been covered by anyone yet, and preferably something that happened in this century.

While my first two books are out of print, Stan the Man Musial: Born to Be a Ballplayer may still be purchased from through your local bookstore. It can also be ordered electronically through Amazon books if you just click here. Hey, the Internet is just amazing, isn't it? Thank you for visiting!