Philip King grew up in Yellow Springs during the 1940s and 1950s in a quiet community that was very different from the place we know today. For one thing, the village of Yellow Springs was not a tourist attraction. In his new novel, King, as the protagonist, revisits that era and recounts the joys of playing baseball, of hanging out at a teen center in the basement of the building on Dayton Street that will soon become the new location for the WYSO studios.
This was all happening in a community that was so relaxed that even the dogs were allowed to run free in those days. The Cleveland Indians won the World Series in 1948. They have not won it since. King, a long-suffering fan, had observed as his team made poor decisions — getting rid of players they should have kept while keeping other players who were past their prime. Our nameless narrator in this nameless town (during our interview, he admits that it is Yellow Springs) goes back in time to convince the men who were running the team to make some different decisions. The results become clear as our protagonist travels back and forth through time, and each time he returns to our present time, he sees how his 'corrections' have influenced the trajectory of baseball history. This is a wonderful book. I rarely order extra copies of books, but I ordered some of these to send to my baseball-loving buddies.
The Book Nook airs Saturdays at 7 a.m. and Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on WYSO 91.3 FM and streams at WYSO.org or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Book Nook on WYSO is presented by the Greene County Public Library with additional support from Washington-Centerville Public Library, Clark County Public Library, Dayton Metro Library, Wright Memorial Public Library, and Tipp City Public Library.
