Arnold Philip Hano (March 2, 1922 – October 24, 2021) was an American editor, novelist, biographer and journalist, best known for his non-fiction work A Day in the Bleachers, a critically acclaimed eyewitness account of Game 1 of the 1954 World Series, centered on its pivotal play, Willie Mays' famous catch and throw.Appel, Marty. "A Day in the Bleachers—The Willie Mays Catch". Sports Collectors Digest. Retrieved August 24, 2015. "'A Day in the Bleachers' was an immediate hit – with reviewers. It received 65 reviews, 64 of them glowing, with a full page in the New York Herald-Tribune, and an important review in The New York Times by James ('Studs Lonegan') Farrell. But it didn't score with the public – barely 3500 sold in a year, and it went out of print a few years later, only to reemerge in 1982 as a reissue by DeCapo Press, and again, by DeCapo, a year ago in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the game.' [...] "Hano was a long-time contributor to SPORT Magazine, writing over 100 features for editors Ed Fitzgerald and Al Silverman, while also developing biographies of Mays, Sandy Koufax, Roberto Clemente, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Muhammad Ali. [...] He also wrote western novels and 'novelizations' of motion pictures (stories based on screenplays), like 'Marriage Italian Style,' a Sophia Loren film. He wrote some early novels for Lion under 'Matthew Gant,' because, 'I didn't want to be publishing myself while I was editor-in-chief!'."Farrell, James T. "Pastime Denizen: A Day in the Bleachers". The New York Times. August 7, 1955. Accessed via ProQuest, 2015-08-24. "On September 29, 1954, some 52,751 people jammed into the Polo Grounds to see the first game of that series. One of them was a highly articulate Giant fan named Arnold Hano. [...] He has written a pleasing and attractive book, recreating an almost legendary day in the history of baseball. He describes the practice before the game, gives vignettes of other bleacher denizens, and writes a dramatic account of the game itself—and, though we know its outcome, our interest is held here as it might be in a novel."Einstein, Charles (1983). The Baseball Reader: Favorites from the Fireside Book of Baseball. New York: McGraw Hill Companies. p. 134. ISBN . Retrieved 2015-08-24.Kupferberg, Herbert. "Books: Diamond Show". Parade. April 15, 1990. Retrieved 2015-08-24. "There's lots of good reading too, the writers including Ernest Hemingway, Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, John Updike and Arnold Hano—the author of a particularly vivid description of Willie Mays' most famous catch."Vecsey, George. "Hazy Sunshine, Vivid Memory". The New York Times. September 29, 2004. Retrieved August 24, 2015.Barra, Allen (2013). Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays, the Parallel Lives of Baseball's Golden Age. New York: Random House. p. 212. . Retrieved August 27, 2015. See also: Kettmann, Steve . "Shocked, Shocked!". Salon. December 3, 2004. Retrieved 2015-08-28. "As a classic baseball book like "A Day in the Bleachers" by Arnold Hano—or anything by Roger Angell—reminds us, the first tool for understanding baseball is the eyes. Trust your eyes, as Hano did at the Polo Grounds, and you can see that steroids were a huge part of baseball in the storied summer of 1998, when a pumped-up Sammy Sosa battled pumped-up Mark McGwire for Roger Maris' single-season home-run record." Miller, Stuart (2006). The 100 Greatest Days in New York Sports. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. p. 69. ISBN . Retrieved August 28, 2015"Hilda Award recipients". Baseball Reliquary. Retrieved August 29, 2015. The author of several sports biographies, and frequent contributor to such publications as The New York Times, Sport, Sports Illustrated, and TV Guide,Dreier, Peter. "The Blog: 'Hano! A Century in the Bleachers' Profiles Sportswriting Superstar in New Documentary". The Huffington Post. July 19, 2015. Retrieved August 24, 2015. Hano was, in 1963, both a Hillman Prize winner"Sociologist Scores New Negro Leaders". The New York Times. April 22, 1964. Retrieved August 24, 2015. and NSSA's Magazine Sportswriter of the Year.Associated Press. "McNamee, Runyon to Get Hall Spots". The Reading Eagle. April 7, 1964. Retrieved August 24, 2015. He was also Baseball Reliquary's 2012 Hilda Award recipient and a 2016 inductee into its Shrine of the Eternals."Shrine of the Eternals – Inductees" . Baseball Reliquary. Retrieved July 30, 2019.
Early life and education Hano was born in Manhattan on March 2, 1922. His father, Alfred Barnard Hano, worked as a lawyer and was employed as a salesman during the Great Depression; his mother, Clara (Millhauser), was a housewife."United States Census, 1930: Person Details for Arnold Hano". Family Search. Retrieved August 24, 2015."United States Census, 1940: Person Details for Arnold Hano". Family Search. Retrieved August 24, 2015. Hano spent his pre-school years in northern Manhattan's Washington Heights, in close proximity to both the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium.Waddles, Hank."Bronx Banter Interview: Arnold Hano". Alex Belth Bronx Banter. September 28, 2009. Retrieved August 24, 2015. A Yankee fan at four, Hano responded to New York's loss in the 1926 World Series by switching his allegiance from the Yankees to the Giants, where it remained lifelong.About the Author: Arnold Hano. Arion Press. Retrieved August 31, 2015. That same year, his family moved from Manhattan to the Bronx for more than a decade comprising his formative years.
By age three, Hano had learned to read under the tutelage of his six-and-a-half-year-old brother, Alfred Jr.Hano, Arnold. "Life With Alfie". Orange Coast Magazine. November 1990. Retrieved September 2, 2015. By the time he was eight, Hano was writing news stories for his brother's mimeographed weekly, The Montgomery Avenue News, albeit stories paraphrased from published newspaper articles. Before long, he grew tired of recycling other people's ideas; once again, his brother encouraged him:
So I invented a cop who would always fall to his knees when he shot the bad guy and I called it Sitting Bull. It was my first pun. [...] I did about six or seven of these episodic things. I was eight years old, writing the equivalent of a novel for a street newspaper that we sold for a nickel a copy, door-to-door.
Hano attended DeWitt Clinton High School, graduating in 1937, and started that fall at Long Island University's Brooklyn campus. However, his initial plan to pursue a career in medicine was diverted: Alt URL
One day I wandered into the newspaper office, and they were laughing. I didn't know you were allowed to have fun. They were enjoying themselves, so I changed from a science major to an English journalism major in my sophomore year. I became the sports editor of the college weekly in my junior year, and senior year I was editor-in-chief with another guy.
LIU's basketball team won the recently established National Invitational Tournament (NIT) in two of those three years.Blevins, Dave (2012). The Sports Hall of Fame Encyclopedia: Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey, Soccer, Volume 1. Lanham, MD. p. 67. . Retrieved August 24, 2015. Hano wrote later "I didn't know how or what – would it be a newspaper, or freelance, or a novelist, but I knew I'd write." Hano went on to earn his Bachelor's degree in 1941."195 Are Graduated at L.I.U. Ceremony". The New York Times. June 10, 1941. p. 26. Accessed via ProQuest August 24, 2015. "Thirteen students received their degrees cum laude and two magna cum laude. [...] The following students were listed as winners of departmental honors: Seymour Bier, accounting; Anthony Barbaccia, Martin Bloom and Murray Silberberg, biology; Noel L. Conrade and Jack B. Hosid, chemistry; Andrew G. Crowley and Henry G. Neuschaefer, economics; John E. Gurka, Arnold Hano, Josephine Pincus and Ethel J. Shohet, English; Helen O. Pause, mathematics; Selma Rubin, retail distribution; Mildred Eichel, secretarial studies."
Career That summer, Hano was employed as a copy boy by the New York Daily News:Hano, Arnold. "A Love Affair With the Press". Orange Coast Magazine. February 1991. pp. 152–154. Retrieved August 31, 2015. Accompanying the News photographer to sporting events, he provided captions for those shots chosen to be published. Hano wrote almost 70 years later:
I'm the luckiest fan in the history of the world. When I was a copy boy at the Daily News, I was sitting in the Ebbetts Field press box when that ball got away from Mickey Owen.
After the US entered World War II, Hano followed his brother into the armed forces in 1942, Alfred to the Air Force"United States World War II Army Enlistment Records: Person Details for Alfred Hano". Family Search. Retrieved August 25, 2015. and Arnold to the Army."United States World War II Army Enlistment Records: Person Details for Arnold Hano". Family Search. Retrieved August 25, 2015. He served in an artillery battalion of the Seventh Infantry Division, participating in the Aleutian Islands Campaign and later landing in the first wave on Kwajalein Atoll. Informed that his brother was missing in action on a mission over Germany, Hano successfully applied to be commissioned as an infantry officer at Fort Benning, allowing him to be deployed to the European Theater where he hoped to find his brother. Before this plan could be realized, the war ended and Alfred's remains were recovered."All Together Now: Parade Honorees: The 2013 Laguna Beach Parade Honored Citizens of the Year, Arnold and Bonnie Hano". Laguna Beach Patriot's Day Parade. Retrieved August 24, 2015. (To find this article, scroll approximately one third of the way down.)
After his discharge, Hano returned to New York to a career in book publishing, first as managing editor with Bantam (1947–49), then as editor-in-chief with Lion Books (1949–54),"Our Raymond, Our Friend". [email protected]. Wednesday, May 10, 2010. Retrieved October 31, 2015. working with novelists C. M. Kornbluth, David Goodis, David Karp and particularly Jim Thompson,Rich, Mark (2010). C.M. Kornbluth: The Life and Works of a Science Fiction Visionary. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. p. 203. . Retrieved August 24, 2015. whose productivity thrived under Hano's guidance.Silverman, Al. "Introduction". The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Book Publishers, Their Editors and Authors. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 11. . Retrieved August 24, 2015.Server, Lee (2002). Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers. New York: Facts on File. p. 253. . Retrieved August 24, 2015.
In 1951, Hano debuted as an author with the baseball-themed young adult novel, The Big Out, described by The New York Times reviewer Ralph Adams Brown as "one of the most thrilling sports novels this reviewer has ever read."Brown, Ralph Adams. "Among the New Books for Younger Readers". The New York Times. August 5, 1951. Accessed via ProQuest on August 24, 2015. "In 'The Big Out,' Arnold Hano has written one of the most thrilling sports novels this reviewer has ever read. Brick Palmer, outstanding major league catcher, accepts the charge of throwing a game, and banishment from organized baseball, rather than reveal his younger brother's dishonesty and thus ruin the latter's medical career. Brick's struggle with himself as he plays outlaw ball in Canada, the dramatic closing of a great career and the final clearing of his name are achieved through a well-knit plot."