Arnold Hano is noted for two things. He was the founding and primary editor of Lion Books, a paperback publisher, during the 1950s, of several important works of noir fiction, including novels by Jim Thompson. He was also a sportswriter and the author of A Day in the Bleachers (1955). The two careers are unrelated, even though one, in a roundabout way, led to the other. A Day in the Bleachers is the cornerstone of Hano's work as a sportswriter, a book that received great reviews (in such publications as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Saturday Review, and Time) but was a commercial failure. It sold only 3,500 copies initially. Still, word of mouth has kept it alive, and over the years recognition has grown. This recognition helped Hano land a job as a regular contributor to Sport magazine from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. In...