 I am about to relate to you a tale that is going to seem unbelievable, and I would agree with you, I wouldn’t believe it myself if it had not happened to me. With that being said, let me introduce myself, my name is Ed Holly and I sale insurance for the Modica Insurance Agency in Rochester, NY. I have a passion for baseball, not the game played by the overpaid crybaby players of today, but for the game as it was played at the turn of the 20th Century. I belong to the Olde Tyme Baseball Association in which members play baseball according to the rules of a particular year, wearing authentic reproduction uniforms and using authentic reproduction equipment. On May 22, 2018 I was warming up for a game in Rochester while representing the International League Newark Bears from 1918, that’s the day my bizarre story began. I could see the dark storm clouds looming on the horizon and hear the slight rumble of thunder off in the distance and was hoping it would stay away long enough to let us get our game in. Everybody that loves playing baseball knows the huge disappointment of having a game cancelled because of the weather, we would play in monsoons and blizzards if it meant getting out for a quick 9 on the diamond. I trotted out to my shortstop position and Charlie Samuels started hitting some infield warmup. I knew if the lightning stayed away we’d have a chance to get this game in, unfortunately the lightning didn’t stay away. The ugly storm clouds still seemed far enough away not to worry, but if you have ever heard that lightning can strike up to 5 to 10 miles away from anything that even looks threatening let me tell you it’s true. I remember being surrounded by a bright, hot, white light and feeling like I was being stung by a million wasps. I was laying on my back, trying to make out the faces hovering over me and hear what they were saying through the ringing in my ears. I could smell the faint odor of charred cloth and was thinking I hope my uniform isn’t burning, this thing cost a lot of money to look realistic from 1918. I was feeling groggy and my head was spinning but I was alive, the guys standing over me were asking me if I was ok and I wasn’t sure how to answer, I felt fine, but the reality was I just got hit by lightning. I was able to sit up and I heard someone say get him to the dugout, the hail is coming. The small crowd that had gathered before the start of the game was mostly gone now, the rain and hail didn’t look like it was going to let up anytime soon. The sound of the rain on the dugout roof was deafening, so much that I couldn’t hear the siren of EMS approaching and thought somebody must have called them, even though we were playing a 1918 baseball game in 1918 uniforms somebody surely still brought a 2018 cell phone. When I half joked about an ambulance on the way I was met with some strange looks which at the time I didn’t understand, was I dead already and didn’t know it? The rain had finally let up and I heard the coach say it should be safe for someone to take me to the hospital now, I didn’t really know why EMS wasn’t coming to get me but I also still wasn’t thinking clearly. Outside the stadium I saw a parking lot full of Model T Ford’s and thought it was kind of ironic that they were having a vintage auto show next to a vintage baseball game. My mind was still fuzzy from the effects of the lightning strike as I rode in the back of a flatbed truck. I thought I must be experiencing some side effects during the ride because everything looked different, like something out of an old movie. The cars were old, the buildings were old, horses were pulling carts down the middle of the road, this was one crazy dream. I was really confused once I got inside the hospital, it didn’t look like any modern hospital, I thought I must be experiencing hallucinations. I drifted in and out of consciousness and didn’t remember much else until I woke up in a room that looked like a museum. A doctor came in and told me I was a lucky man, it didn’t look like there was any permanent damage and my coach was here to get me and I could leave with the team. When the coach came in it wasn’t Charlie, I didn’t recognize him at all as he was talking about still having time to make the train for Buffalo. Thinking that this must be some kind of prank or something I thought ok, I’ll play along. It turns out this was not a practical joke, as I read a newspaper with the latest news about the war I realized that someone would have had to have gone through a lot of trouble to set up a place that looked like I was back in 1918. Once you realize that you have been somehow transported back in time who do you go to? Knowing that I’d probably be locked up in a mental institution if I said anything I thought it would be best to go along until I could figure out what I was going to do to get back to 2018, if it was even possible. Coach gave me a couple days off and then got me back on the field and I did what I loved doing, I played baseball. We traveled around by train playing games and staying in hotels, I was fitting in pretty good and even had a reporter from St. Louis interview me about my playing days with the Cardinals in 1907 and being struck by lightning in Rochester. I had just enough historical knowledge of the Cardinals to get through the interview without raising any suspicion. Everything was going great until a day in Baltimore on June 9th. A close play at the plate had me sliding safely into home for the game’s first run, unfortunately for me I broke my ankle on the play and was told I would miss the rest of the season. But what happened that night in the hospital would be the real end of my Newark Bears playing career. I was resting comfortably in my hospital bed, as comfortable as one can be in a hospital bed anyway. Even though I was in the hospital during the great flu pandemic of 1918 I had a room by myself. I was drifting off to sleep when I heard a low humming noise and suddenly the room was filled with a brilliant white light. Was I having a flashback to the lightning strike or was I dreaming? Just as I lay there trying to comprehend what was going on what looked like a doorway in the middle of the room opened up and two men in silver suits wearing dark sunglasses stepped out of the doorway and it closed back up. They assured me that I had no reason to fear them and they were here to help. They identified themselves as The Keepers and explained that they are kind of “portal police” for the corridors that run between dimensions in the universe. My questions for them included time travel and how I went from 2018 to 1918. They informed me that time travel is not possible, not as we understand it anyway. The universe is made up of many different dimensions, each on their own timeline. The lightning strike opened up a portal between the dimensions and I fell through it, landing in 1918. I was at the same time and place as the other Ed Holly during the lightning strike except in a different year because each timeline starts and ends at a different place, making each one separate. It was only by coincidence that I had the same name and was wearing clothing for their time period that allowed me to fit in without raising any suspicion. The Keepers were here to correct what had happened and would return me to 2018. I took a short ride on what we would call an alien UFO and was deposited back to the baseball diamond on May 22, 2018 with a crowd gathered around me and EMS on the way. That’s my story, crazy, bizarre, unbelievable, call it what you want. I was given the knowledge that these portals are out there and open up from time to time but I was not given their locations. I am now spending my time studying strange phenomena involving “time travel” with the hope of locating a portal and learning how to access it to travel between dimensions. If anyone reads this and has any information or experiences involving these portals, please contact me. ~This story was written by guest writer, Ed Holly.
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