* A Stephen King baseball novella? Now that’s scary

From Openpage, “the blog of the Florida Center for the Literary Arts at Miami Dade College”:

King’s announcement arrives –not so coincidentally — just in time for Opening Day. King, a lifelong citizen of Red Sox Nation (he lives part-time on Florida’s west coast so he can catch spring training games), is one of America’s most famous baseball fans. But this is his first baseball fiction since The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon — and Gordon left the Red Sox in 1999.

…[T]he book sells for $25. Fans are advised to order directly from the Cemetery Dance online store. Early buyers include a Blockade Billy baseball card (to see the dust jacket, with the Orbik cover and a front-and-back image of the baseball card, go here).Those who don’t order from Cemetery Dance may be skunked. The publisher’s website says: “We’ll be filling direct orders first and then distributors, online stores, and the chains if there are copies left available after we’ve taken care of our regular customers.”

From the CemeteryDance website:

Even the most diehard baseball fans don’t know the true story of William “Blockade Billy” Blakely. He may have been the greatest player the game has ever seen, but today no one remembers his name. He was the first — and only — player to have his existence completely removed from the record books. Even his team is long forgotten, barely a footnote in the game’s history.

Every effort was made to erase any evidence that William Blakely played professional baseball, and with good reason. Blockade Billy had a secret darker than any pill or injection that might cause a scandal in sports today. His secret was much, much worse… and only Stephen King, the most gifted storyteller of our age, can reveal the truth to the world, once and for all.