By Associated Press, 7/29/2003

LOWELL, Mass. (AP) A homegrown literary icon will be remembered next month with an honor usually reserved for sports figures: a bobblehead doll.

The first 1,000 fans at the Aug. 21 game between the Lowell Spinners and Williamsport Crosscutters of the Class A New York-Penn League will receive bobbing likenesses of Jack Kerouac.

The giveaway, in partnership with the English department at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, is part of "Jack Kerouac Night" at LeLacheur Park.

The eight-inch doll features Kerouac holding a pen and notebook and standing on a copy of "On The Road," his best-known work.

"It's unusual, to say the least, to have a sports team get involved with a literary figure," said Hilary Holladay, director of the Kerouac Conference on Beat Literature.

Before he was a writer, Kerouac was a baseball fan and athlete. He excelled in football and track at Lowell High School, spent the winter of 1942 as a sportswriter for The Sun of Lowell, and played football at Columbia.