Writer Stephen King puts the frights into baseball

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-03-31 14:36
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Writer Stephen King puts the frights into baseball

NEW YORK - Horror writer Stephen King is turning his pen to a new arena -- baseball.

Independent horror publisher Cemetery Dance said on Tuesday that it was publishing an baseball-themed novella called "Blockade Billy" by King to coincide with the start of the U.S. baseball season.

"I love old-school baseball, and I also love the way people who've spent a lifetime in the game talk about the game. I tried to combine those things in a story of suspense," King said in a statement.

"People have asked me for years when I was going to write a baseball story. Ask no more; this is it."

"Blockade Billy" will be published in mid-April in a hardcover edition.

Cemetery Dance's publisher, Richard Chizmar, said he had been corresponding about baseball and books for almost 20 years with King, whose stories such as "The Shining" and "Carrie" have been made into Hollywood horror movies.

He said the story was about William "Blockade Billy" Blakely, who may have been the greatest player of all time but had been totally erased from the record books as he had a secret worse than any of the drugs scandals that have hit the sport recently.

King, 62, announced on his website last month that his next book will be a collection of four previously unpublished novellas called "Full Dark, No Stars." The baseball story is not part of this collection.