This is the exuberant biography of the best known and most colorful newspapercolumnist of the 1920s and '30s by one of the best-known and most colorful newspaper columnists of today, Jimmy Breslin.

Slick, upbeat and funny, these stories inspired the popular musical and film Guys and Dolls. 'Of all the high players this country ever sees, there is no doubt but that the guy they call the Sky is the highest. He will bet all he has, and nobody can bet any more than this'.

Guys, Dolls, and Curveballs is a delightful collection of ballpark dispatches from one of the game's most unique chroniclers—Damon Runyon, the legendary reporter and creator of such mythic gangster icons as Nathan Detroit and the Lemon Drop Kid. Best known as the bard of Broadway for turning two-bit hustlers and deadbeat horseplayers of Jazz Age New York City into literary legend, Runyon was first and foremost a newspaperman. After arriving in New York from Colorado in 1911, Runyon went to work for Hearst News Service as a baseball beat writer. It was at the ballpark that he honed his legendary skills for finding the story where no one else bothered to look. A master wordsmith, Runyon covered giants of the era such as Ty Cobb, and a Boston Red Sox pitcher named Babe Ruth. In addition, he brought an influential style to observing the rituals and rhythms of the ballpark, wryly commenting on everything from the gamblers and bookies doing business to the particular style of hat worn by a woman in the crowd. Editor Jim Reisler collects Runyon's writings on every facet of the game, making this a unique and indispensable look at our beloved pastime.

Burned out by working the baseball beat for years, in the summer of 1922 Damon Runyon was looking for a new sport to cover for The New York American as a change of pace. Having pilloried golf just a few years before, he went to Saratoga that August to sample horse racing and found that “There, right in front of him, were so many of the characters he so loved from his time covering the comings and goings of the Manhattan night crowd.” This was just the tonic Runyon needed to emerge from his malaise. Runyon didn’t just cover the great races and which horse won: he would get to the track days before and roam along the backstretch, speaking with the trainers, the gamblers, the rich owners, and the wise guys, many of which became model characters in his fiction and in the musical Guys and Dolls. This book collects the best of Runyon’s horse racing columns to 1936, when he moved on to other beats.

While analyzing Damon Runyon's high spirited work in terms of historical contexts, popular culture, and of the changing function of the media, Schwarz argues that in his columns and stories Runyon was an indispensable figure in creating our public images of New York City culture, including our interest in the demi-monde and underworld that explains in part the success of The Godfather films and The Sopranos . In his lively and exuberant chapters that include a panoramic view of New York City between the World Wars - with a focus on its colourful nightlife - Schwarz examines virtually every facet of Runyon's career from sports writer, daily columnist, trial reporter, and Hollywood figure to the author of the still widely-read short stories that were the source of the Broadway hit Guys and Dolls . As part of his discussion of Runyon's art and the artistry of Runyon's fiction, Schwarz skilfully examines the special language of the Broadway stories known as 'Runyonese', and explains how 'Runyonese' has become an adjective for describing flamboyant behaviour.

Damon Runyon was born Alfred Damon Runyan on October 4th, 1880, in Manhattan, Kansas. When Runyon was two his father was forced to sell his newspaper, and the family moved further west, eventually settling in Pueblo, Colorado in 1887, where Runyon spent the rest of his youth. By most accounts, he attended school only through the fourth grade and then, seeking a career, moved into the newspaper trade working for his father. In 1898, still a teenager, Runyon sought to broaden his horizons and enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight in the Spanish-American War. After his service he returned to Colorado and worked for several local newspapers. Runyon's expertise was covering the semi-professional teams in Colorado; for a man who would become indelibly linked to sports he endured a notable failure in an attempt to organize a Colorado minor baseball league. It lasted less than a week. In 1910 Runyon moved to New York City to work for the William Randolph Hearst newspaper chain, writing a daily column in The New York American. Here, in his first New York byline, his name was changed once more. The editor decided to drop the "Alfred" and run with the soon to be famous moniker "Damon Runyon." Promoted to be the Hearst newspapers' baseball columnist he developed his trademark knack of spotting the eccentric and the unusual, on the field or in the stands, and Runyon generally re-wrote and revolutionized the way baseball was covered in newspapers and shared this style with its adoring millions of fans. But Runyon was more than a great sports writer. His plays and essays became legendary ways of looking that bit differently at America, of soaking up the atmosphere of a glamorous and rip-roaring age and distilling it into black and white type. Of course, the cliché about newspapermen and writers is that they are heavy drinkers, chain-smokers, gamblers and obsessively chase women with a sideline in gathering info and actually getting something written just before the deadline hits. And, that pretty much was Runyon's life. In 1938, Runyon developed throat cancer which eventually would leave him unable to speak but not unable to work, which he continued to do so at a ferocious pace. From 1939 to 1943, Runyon pursued a Hollywood career as a writer and producer at MGM, Universal and RKO studios. The work continued to follow from Runyon's pen. Not only some fabulous short stories in his famous "Runyonesque" filled with characters as funny and gritty as anything that could be written but classic books that would endure long after he was gone. Guys & Dolls being merely one; a book, a film, a musical. Alfred Damon Runyon died in New York City on December 10th, 1946 from throat cancer, at age 66.