Billy Phelan's Greatest Game

Author's Note

Because the city of Albany exists in the real world, readers may be led to believe that the characters who populate the Albany in this book are therefore real people. But there are no authentically real people in these pages. Some local and national celebrities are so indelibly connected to the era of the story that it would have been silly not to present them under their real names. But wherever a character has a role of even minor significance in this story, both name and actions are fictional. Any reality attaching to any character is the result of the author’s creation, or of his own interpretation of history. This applies not only to Martin Daugherty and Billy Phelan, to Albany politicians, newsmen, and gamblers, but also to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Thomas E. Dewey, Henry James, Damon Runyon, William Randolph Hearst, and any number of other creatures of the American imagination.

WILLIAM KENNEDY