You Heard it Here First...

A blog posting by a 'friend of ours' named Joe Fav, the IFL PR Senior VP and industry guru, recently described Leigh Montville's great book on Ted Williams. I've heard that Leigh's book on Babe Ruth is just as good. But, that is not what this post is about.

With my newfound and ever-growing number of Boston connections, I learned of Leigh's new project - The Mysterious Montague: A True Tale of Hollywood, Golf, and Armed Robbery. It can be pre-ordered now.

(click on "you heard it here first above for a link).

Leigh and Shelby Strother were the most gifted writers I met while working at the NBA from 1980-2007. As so many of you know, Shelby was taken from us far too soon (1991). Leigh was writing for the Boston Globe when I first met him, and he has gone on to other writing projects, mostly for Sports Illustrated.

While researching his book on Babe Ruth, Leigh learned and delved into the life of the Mysterious Montague. Here is the book description. Remember to order it, and grab Ted and Babe Ruth books while you're at it...

John Montague had a bagful of golf tricks. He could chip balls into a hammock hung on a balcony and pick a bird off a wire at 170 yards. When he arrived in Hollywood in the early 1930s, he quickly became a celebrity among celebrities. He lived for a time with Oliver Hardy and played golf with everyone from Howard Hughes to W.C. Fields to Bing Crosby, his close friend, whom he famously beat while playing with only a rake, a shovel, and a bat. Yet strangely, Montague never entered a professional golf tournament—and in a town that thrived on publicity, he remained conspicuously silent about his lavish lifestyle and absolutely refused to be photographed.

The reasons became clear when Time magazine published his picture...and police in upstate New York instantly recognized him as a fugitive wanted for armed robbery—and his name was not John Montague. The trial of the “Mysterious Montague” was held in a tiny upstate New York town, attracted hordes of national media, and became the most talked-about trial of its day.

From the glamour of 1930s Hollywood to Montague’s tricks and triumphs on the golf course, to the shady world of Adirondack bootleggers and rumrunners, Leigh Montville captures a man and his era with the verve and energy that have made his books major national bestsellers.