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#2. "Blockade Billy"
Don't let the packaging as a stand-alone book fool you: this is a short story on steroids. And a damned fine one at that.
King offers a ghastly take on the national pastime, courtesy of raconteur George Grantham, a former third-base coach for the (fictional) New Jersey Titans. The old-timer tells "Mr. King" about the team's "nightmare season" way back in 1957; more specifically, he relates the notorious story of "Blockade" Billy Blakely, an emergency call-up from Davenport, Iowa who took the major leagues by storm for one month before his prior foul play caught up with him.
Grantham goes heavy on the ominous remarks, couching his tale as an "awful story" and making repeated comments about how Blockade Billy's exploits had to be stricken from baseball's record books. The young catcher (whose nickname derives from his prowess at blocking home plate) is also depicted as someone not quite right in the head: he references himself in the third person, whispers to himself constantly while catching, and has "a habit of echoing back what you [just] said to him." These various hints propel the reader through the narrative, in eager search of the source of Blockade Billy's infamy. What could this generally likable "Iowa plowboy" have done that was so terrible?
The answer is provided by a grisly climax (that gives new meaning to the crowd chant "Kill the ump!") and an explanatory denouement reminiscent of Robert Bloch's Psycho. Blockade Billy is exposed as an impostor: an orphan named Eugene Katsanis, who worked on the Blakely farm in Clarence, Iowa, has been impersonating the minor leaguer. Worse, the real Billy Blakely and his parents have been brutally murdered. Katsanis "slashed their throats" and stashed their corpses "in the barn." He also "killed all the cows so the neighbors wouldn't hear them howling to be milked at night." All appalling acts to be sure, yet Grantham also seems to have some sympathy for Katsanis. The former coach suggests that Katsanis's proverbial screws could have been knocked loose by the years of physical abuse suffered at a "Christian orphan home that was probably hell on earth." Grantham also speculates that the Blakelys had their own dark side, that the envious family "pulled a few strings to keep Katsanis from playing locally" and overshadowing the less-talented Billy. Whatever did actually transpire back in Iowa, it wasn't the stuff Field of Dreams is made of.
Grantham's tale makes for a fast but mesmerizing read. His oration brings old-time baseball to life--the salty humor, the superstition, the camaraderie. On the last page, he insists that baseball "is a good thing. Always was, always will be." Still, the preceding narrative calls such assurance into serious question, as the all-American sport is shown to have a bloody, malicious element. Because
is there really much difference between baserunners deliberately sliding into fielders with their "spikes high" and Katsanis deftly
nicking Achilles heels at home plate with his hidden sliver of razor blade? Perhaps not, but one thing is certain: in "Blockade Billy" King is at the top of his storytelling game, and man, does he throw a
wicked curve.
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