Baseball

Tag Area: Real-World Event
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e01–02)

Genesis

Physicist and all-around good guy Sam Beckett rushes his time machine into production—funding is about to be cut!—and as a consequence, he leaps into the life of a USAF test pilot, where Sam and his holographic cohort Al have a moral mission. And after setting things right in that pilot’s life, Sam—“oh, boy”—takes a few moments to win the big baseball game in 1968. —Inmate Jan
One end of this string represents your birth, the other end your death. You tie the ends together, and your life is a loop. Ball the loop, and the days of your life touch each other out of sequence, therefore leaping to one point in the string to another . . .
A worried Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett), dressed as a test pilot, stares out of the small cockpit of the experimental X2 plane.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Sports
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Field of Dreams

Corn farmer Ray Kinsella is called to build a ballpark in his cornfield; once the field is built, various ballplayers from the past come. The players seem more like ghosts who regard the field as their heaven rather than time travelers, so the actual time travel element is slight, arising from a walk when Ray slips into 1972. —Michael Main
If you build it, they will come.
Kevin Costner (as Ray Kinsella) stands in front of his green, diamond-shaped corn field.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s02e03)

The Americanization of Machiko

In 1953, Sam steps off a bus as a sailor returning home from Japan with—surprise! to Sam and everyone else—a new bride named Machiko. —Michael Main
“I try to find a husband . . . to find my husband”
Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett) and Leila Lee Olsen (as Machiko, dressed in a Japanese robe) pick daisies on the roadside.
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Men in Black 3

When Boris the Animal escapes from lunar prison and returns to 1969 to kill Agent K and expose Earth to attack, Agent J must follow to save Agent K and all of Earth!

Tim and I saw this on Fathers Day Eve in 2012. —Michael Main
This is now my new favorite moment in human history.
Will Smith (as Agent J) sits on a motor inside a giant wheel, zipping down a highway in a tunnel.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Early Chapter Book

The Magic Tree House 29*

A Big Day for Baseball

Jack and Annie go back to Jackie Robinson’s major league debut at Ebbett’s Field in 1947. The story has a twist we haven’t seen before: When they put on two magic hats, everyone sees Jack and Annie as if they were teenage bat boys rather than little children. —Michael Main
One minute he’s tall! The next he’s short! One minute he can throw the ball! The next he can’t!
Dressed as a ballboy and ballgirl, young Jack and Annie watch Jackie Robinson swing a baseball bat.
  • Fantasy
  • Audience: Children
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Secret Agent Moe Berg #6

Billie the Kid

In an alternate history leading up to a 1945 atomic bomb in southern California, young Billie “the Kid” Davis grows up in the mid-20th century, playing shortstop better than any of the boys, flying B-25s with her Dad, and eventually—with Moe Berg and the woman-with-many-names—taking on that bomb. —Michael Main
This is your moment, Billie. Coming up right now. Save the worlds, Billie. Change everything. You can do it.
A woman in a U.S. astronaut suit pulls a sled over a yellow landscape with a black dragon roaring in the distance.
  • Science Fiction
  • Sports
  • War
  • Definite Time Travel