• Ever heard of Edward Everett who was keynote speaker at Gettysburg in 1863? Of course not, because President Lincoln followed Everett with the most memorable two-minute speech ever — the Gettysburg Address.
• Or Lord Halifax, who in 1940 was front-runner to become Prime Minister of England, but went to the dentist, missing a key meeting, while the job went instead to Winston Churchill.
• How about Jug McSpaden, who came second a record 13 times in one season — the year Byron Nelson won an astonishing 18 PGA events the same year.
• And who couldn't forget Elisha Gray who might have been Ma Gray had he filed a caveat for the telephone two hours earlier.
• Or Harriet Quimby, the first woman to fly the English Channel solo — a feat completely lost in the news to the sinking of the Titanic.

If life is all about the winners, the top dogs, and the walk-off homeruns — you'd never know it from Dale Patterson's newest and greatest collection. Because Close, But No Cigar is a rollicking fun-filled romp through the dustbin of history where the real stars come from the flip-side of fortune and fame. Come celebrate the runner-ups, nearly-weres, and also-rans from the forgotten corners of science, sports, entertainment, politics and more.

Dale Patterson
is a former long-time editor at The Canadian Press and author of Fifteen Minutes of Fame: History's One-Hit Wonders and What Time Of Day Was That? History by the Minute

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