BALL NUTS traces the daily fortunes of six baseball-crazy inmates who escape from a Squallpocket, Maine hospital via a mysterious time warp to experience a wild, funkified, and re-imagined 1977 baseball season. Red Sox fanatic Carlton "Buzz" Gip shares the narrative duties with Mikey from Philly, Dodgers old-timer Sherman Wayman, Reds groupie Crazy Amy Gulliver, Bronx brother Friendly Fred and midwest schizophrenic Lester Creech (who roots for four teams at once). Meanwhile, Dr. Sheila Grossinger and Seamus Headley, the ward's cryptic "sweeper", are hot on their trail...* * *Carlton "Buzz" Gip is just an ordinary divorced father, living out his early middle age watching Red Sox baseball games in his Maine trailer-until he realizes he is actually a mental patient at a nearby hospital. He swears that two strange "men in black" visited him with a mission to replay the 1977 season using a set of custom time-transporting Strat-O-Matic dice, but was it all in his head?Sharing the possible delusion are his five equally odd, baseball junkie ward-mates. Needless to say, "rolling rights" to the games are soon debated. In a nasty, multi-patient wrestling match over the dice one day, all six patients are accidentally zapped back to 1977, leaving psychiatrist Sheila Grossinger and corporate spook Seamus Headley to join forces, transport themselves back to the same year using newer, more powerful dice, and retrieve the patients.Our odd gang beams around to various ballgames in the first few months, even taking in the premiere of "Star Wars". Surly Phillies phanatic Mikey accidentally drowns in the Royals Stadium fountain, creating some tension, but for the most part they stay as sane as possible, even befriending a semi-retired Texas sportswriter named "Peachy" Calhoun to help them get around.When "Dr. Sheila" and Seamus appear outside the Indians' ballpark, though, the patients panic and flee in all directions. With Seamus recovering from a severe concussion in a Cleveland hospital, Buzz and the doctor hit the road to track the others down. They scoop up the five-year-old Buzz from the bowels of Fenway Park, where he was apparently abandoned back in '77, and take the unaware boy west in search of Dodger fanatic Sherman Wayman, who has a dark past of his own. Meanwhile, Crazy Amy escapes to Memphis to "rescue" Elvis Presley, Buzz and Fred make a side trip to Manhattan to try and do the same with John Lennon. Will time run out on the season? Will they each "evaporate" when their teams get eliminated, as Seamus has warned? Who will survive to actually see the World Series? It's a wild and crazy race to the finish...
About the Author: JEFF POLMAN is a journalist, screenwriter, and blogger who just can't stop writing about baseball. "Ball Nuts" was adapted from the second of his five fictional replay blogs, which include "The Bragging Rights League", "Mysteryball '58" and his latest creation "Dear Hank." His first published replay novel, "1924 and You Are there!" was based on the blog of the same name. After getting his start writing freelance articles for the Advocate newspapers and Boston Phoenix, he was Arts Editor of the Vermont Vanguard Press for its first five years before moving out west. His Web writing has appeared on The Huffington Post, ChicagoSide Sports, Baseball Prospectus, The Hardball Times, New England Baseball Journal, and Seamheads. He is a lifelong Red Sox fan and resides with his wife and son in Culver City, CA.