An earthquake in modern-day San Francisco sends three major league players back in time to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Upstart rookie Johnny Blent, superstar slugger André Velez, and manager Bucky Martin must adapt to turn-of-the-century baseball and the repressive and racist social norms of yesteryear. Baseball purists will find a special love in Steve Hermanos’s GOING, GOING, GONE!, where legends like Christy Mathewson, Wee Willie Keeler, Ty Cobb, and Honus Wagner come to life alongside
lesser know players like Rube Wadell and “Turkey Mike” Donlin. Hermanos’s vivid depictions of imaginary baseball games, and New York’s legendary Polo Grounds, are the heart and soul of this story.
Fans of Mike Lupica’s baseball fiction or Bernard Malamud’s “The Natural” will enjoy how Hermanos contrasts old baseball with new. Velez struggles with steroid withdrawal after jumping back in time, while several old-time players seem like (semi-) functional alcoholics. Some time travel/alternate history novels suffer from “Forrest Gump” syndrome, where fictional characters interact with real-life historical figures in scenes that feel forced and award. But GOING, GOING, GONE! eschews this common pitfall by making historical figures like Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, and Teddy Roosevelt an integral part of the story. The South didn’t lose the American Civil War but instead seceded to Cuba, now called New Glory. Blent, Velez, and Martin become pawns in a life-or-death baseball game that might avert a New Glory invasion of the US mainland and strike a fatal blow against slavery.
Hermanos keeps the history and science simple and plausible; hey, if anyone could get these players back to the future, it would be Einstein and Tesla, right? The magic of GOING, GOING, GONE! is the love of old-time baseball, back when the game was played with tiny mitts, a softer ball, and no batting helmets. GOING, GOING, GONE! is a novel written by a baseball fan for baseball fans.
Author Steve Hermanos blends “Back to the Future” with “Field of Dreams” in GOING, GOING, GONE!, a fast-paced tale about time-traveling baseball players that also touches on issues of race and politics.
~Rob Errera for IndieReader