In his book “The Curious Case of the Cleveland Indians - a Time Traveler’s Memoir” King has written a tantalizing work of science fiction and fantasy combined with his own memoir also written as fiction. He doesn’t name himself; he becomes The Protagonist, among other things. He doesn’t even name his hometown although I did a radio interview with him last week and he gave me permission to reveal that it was Yellow Springs.
The Yellow Springs of his memories was a very different place. It wasn’t a tourist town. And the dogs ran free. You might be sitting in the classroom at your grade school and have the family dog appear right there; just stopping in to say hello, or woof. He gives readers all these sentimental snapshots of that lost world.
He doesn’t belabor us with the technical aspects of time travel. We can only time travel back to periods since we were born; we cannot go back further because we did not exist. The author was born in 1943 so he was able to go back in time to talk to the Indians brass about trades they made after they won their last title in 1948.
Our Time Traveler is prepared, he studies players that were traded and those who were not to determine which they should have kept and those they should have let go. He brings along information about stock market performance so that he can convince them he’s the real deal; tomorrow the stock market will do this. Do you believe me now?
He is able to alter history only slightly, he doesn’t want to go too far and totally mess things up. Cleveland baseball fans of a certain vintage will be delighted by the tweaks he engineers and the results. He even intercedes on behalf of injured players; the pitcher Herb Score never suffers that devastating injury, the slugger Al Rosen doesn’t get hurt and goes on to the Hall of Fame.
When he returns to the present he savors how his adjustments changed history. Cleveland became better-they won more games and championships. He went back and adjusted personal things. He never broke his ankle sliding. So satisfying.
I bought extra copies to send to my buddies who love baseball.
Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews authors every Saturday at 7 a.m. and on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For more information, visit www.wyso.org/programs/book-nook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.
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