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Originally Posted by issybird
Pete Reiser and more.
But the one that's really spooky is that Malamud seems eerily prescient. Given that the book was published in 1952, it must have been essentially written by the playoffs in 1951. But especially given that the Knights must be the New York Giants, Roy is the Bobby Thompson that didn't happen.
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Prescient indeed, as I think the pre-Roy Hobbs Knights seem like the hapless 1962 Mets.
Roy's HR off the clock makes me think of Darryl Strawberry's shot off the clock in St. Louis in 1985 when the Mets were fighting for the division lead and just missed. (There's a player who should have been among the greats of all time but fell way short, as did Doc Gooden.)
Regarding names--is Hobbs a nod to Thomas Hobbes, who characterized life in the natural state as "nasty, brutish, and short"?