William F. Kirk
| William F. Kirk | |
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| Born |
William Frederick Kirk April 29, 1877 Mankato, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Died | March 25, 1927 (aged 49) Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Occupation | Baseball writer, columnist, humorist, poet, songwriter |
William Frederick Kirk (April 29, 1877 – March 25, 1927) was an American baseball writer, columnist, humorist, poet and songwriter.
Born in Mankato, Minnesota, Kirk spent most of his childhood in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. He graduated from high school there and began his career in journalism on a local paper. His humor column, “Fleeting Fancies”, was a popular feature in the Chippewa Falls Herald and later in the Milwaukee Sentinel. It brought him to the attention of metropolitan dailies and was the name of his first book, published in 1904. Kirk's lyrics drew comparisons with those of other poets, whose work he sometimes parodied: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Eugene Field, and James Whitcomb Riley.
A longtime newspaperman, Kirk got his start at press outlets in Chippewa Falls and Milwaukee. In 1905 he signed a contract with the Hearst organization and moved to New York, where he was employed at two of William Randolph Hearst's papers: the New York American and the New York Evening Journal. After returning to Chippewa Falls in 1918, he continued working as a nationally syndicated columnist.
For eighteen years Kirk was distributed by the International Features Syndicate and reached a national audience as he wrote on subjects as diverse as baseball, temperance, women's suffrage and divorce. His pieces were seen in everything from "The Smart Set" to trade union publications. He was widely known for the features "Little Bobbie's Pa" and "The Manicure Lady".
Recent works on baseball's deadball era have had numerous examples of Kirk’s sports writing. One can, for instance, read his account of Fred Merkle's infamous blunder or his rhyming tribute to the Flying Dutchman, Honus Wagner.The Unforgettable Season by Gordon H. Fleming recounts the 1908 National League pennant race through contemporary press coverage by Kirk and others. In 1911 Kirk published a collection of baseball ballads called Right Off The Bat.
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