Dear Phaithful Readers,

With the Philadelphia Phillies season lurching to a close and not much optimism in sight, I felt it necessary to funnel our dark moods in a more productive direction. I thought it might be best to provide you with an outlet from the constant grind of daily hot takes and fantasy updates and athlete gossip. That stuff can take a toll on you after awhile.

So I thought, “What medium can provide us with a better opportunity for escape than outright fiction?”

And that’s exactly what I aim to bring to you. But I know you better than you think. See, I know you don’t want to sit in your cubicle and read some made up tale with no roots in the Delaware Valley. And I know you didn’t find this site because you were trying to avoid the world of sports. None of this is lost on me–which is precisely why I found a way to give it all to you at once.

I’ve decided to serialize Black Yarn, the fictional story of a Pennsylvania coal mining town, its beloved baseball team, and the horror that gripped their existence from the beginning. The rub? This town, or what’s left
of it, actually exists and is less than a two hour drive from the city of Philadelphia.

Welcome to Centralia, the site of an underground mine fire that has raged out of control since 1962 and has pushed over 3,000 residents out of their homes for good. The United States government, its citizens, and history itself have all but forgotten them.

The story I intend to share with you is my attempt to change that fact.

I will release an installment of Black Yarn every Thursday for the next ten weeks. Though I want you to follow each post and enjoy the characters and storylines I’ve constructed, I hope you will remember everything you read here was inspired by real tragedies that actually occurred in an ordinary, Pennsylvania town. And I hope you will be moved to click on the links and watch the videos I’ve provided so you can do your small part to keep the memories of a forgotten town intact. Thank you.  

Yours In the Bond,

Frank Morelli

READ PART 1/10