Blockade Billy, Stephen King
Blockade Billy, Stephen King
201 Rating(s)
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Blockade Billy

Author: Stephen King

Narrator: Craig Wasson, Mare Winningham

Unabridged: 2 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/25/2010

Categories: Fiction, Horror


Synopsis

From New York Times bestselling author Stephen King comes the haunting story of Blockade Billy, the greatest Major League baseball player to be erased from the game.

Even the most die-hard 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.

About Stephen King

Stephen Edwin King was born in 1947 in the city of Portland, Maine. He attended the University of Maine, where he received a B.A. degree in English in 1970. He married his present wife, Tabitha, in 1971, and they have three children. King is an American author of contemporary horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy. His novels have sold more than 350 million copies. Many have been made into films, television movies, and comics. He has published 54 novels using a pen name (Richard Bachman) for a few of them. Many of his stories take place in his home state of Maine.

He has won about every possible literary award beginning with his 1980 novella, The Way Station. His most notable literary award was in 2007 for the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America.King has had the common human weaknesses including alcoholism and drug addiction. His health during that period was so bad that he barely remembered writing the novel, Cujo. The first novel written after he quit all dependent drugs and alcohol was Needful Things.Stephen King's wife, Tabitha, has published nine of her own novels along with both sons being published writers. His daughter is a Unitarian Universalism Church minister with her same sex partner.

A life altering happening beset King in June of 1999. King was walking on the shoulder of Route 5, in Lovell, Maine, when a driver, who was distracted by an unrestrained dog, struck him from behind. His severe injuries kept him in the hospital until July 9. His lawyer purchased the van that hit him to prevent it from being sold on eBay. It was crushed at a junkyard. King thought that he would not write again, but did resume writing with this caveat, "I'm writing, but I'm writing at a slower pace".

His most notable novels are: Carrie, The Shining, The Stand, Misery, It, The Dark Tower, Under the Dome, and The Shawshank Redemption.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jon on October 04, 2023

Wow! Fantastic novella by the master of horror. Blockade Billy 'pitches' a baseball story so skillfully that you often find yourself questioning where reality stops and fiction starts. This short story reminded me of the Kierkegaardian concept of The Knights of Infinite Resignation taken to the most......more

Goodreads review by Iloveplacebo on September 21, 2022

Blockade Billy Relato que creo que se disfrutará más siendo fan del baseball. Puede resultar algo lioso si no se sabe cómo se juega a ese deporte, o al menos las reglas básicas. La historia es bastante simple, muy del montón. Casi que se veía venir el giro argumental. Nos cuenta como este hombre, Willi......more

Goodreads review by TK421 on April 27, 2016

I have many pleasures in life, but two that really make me smile are Stephen King and baseball. Now I’m not going to write this review in hopes of changing your mind about Stephen King—he is what he is. You may like him. You may not. For my own two cents, I think he is a wonderful storyteller. Sure,......more

Goodreads review by Calista on July 25, 2019

Baseball. This is a baseball novella, so it helps to enjoy baseball to enjoy this story. There are a lot of baseball terms in here and I'm not familiar with them. I'm not even a baseball fan. I think baseball is just a little more exciting than golf. It would be much more fun if the pitcher tried to......more