Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball Story

by LeAnne Howe

Miko Kings is set in Indian Territory's queen city, Ada, Oklahoma, during the baseball fever of 1907, but moves back and forth from 1969 during the Vietnam War to present-day Ada. The story focuses on an Indian baseball team but brings a new understanding to the term "America's favorite pastime." For tribes in Indian Territory, baseball was an extension of a sport they'd been playing for centuries before their forced removal to Indian Territory. In this lively and humorous work of fiction informed by careful historical research, LeAnne Howe weaves original and fictive documents such as newspaper clippings, photographs, typewritten letters, and handwritten journal entries into the narrative.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Baseball, Indigenous, Sports, Time Travel, Native American

270 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2007

About the author

LeAnne Howe is the author of three books, including Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball Story (Aunt Lute Books, 2007), and is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation. In 2006-2007 she was the John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi at Oxford. She was the screenwriter for Indian Country Diaries: Spiral of Fire, a 90-minute PBS documentary released in November 2006. Howe's first novel, Shell Shaker (Aunt Lute Books, 2001), received an American Book Award in 2002. Her poetry collection, Evidence of Red (Salt Publishing, UK; 2005), was awarded the 2006 Oklahoma Book Award. Currently, Howe is Associate Professor and Interim Director of American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and teaches in the M.F.A. program there. She divides her time between her home in Ada, Oklahoma and her academic life in Illinois.

Reviews

[MC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Confession time: When I was assigned this book as part of my college English course, I felt...less than enthused. A story about baseball, are you kidding me?

To my surprise, I loved it! This book is so much more than "An Indian Baseball Story"; in fact, at times baseball seems to fade to the background, replaced by a beautiful narrative of friendship, love, family secrets, and a heavy dose of the metaphysical.

Howe, a Chocktaw, presents the story brilliantly through a combination of diary entries (one of the best portions of the book), newspaper clippings, photographs, and text. While my attention may have drifted a bit during the baseball sequences, it was captured again by the rich histories which followed, and my personal favorite part of the story, the fabulous anecdotes of the narrator's life in the Middle East before moving to Oklahoma.

This is a good choice for any fans of history and memoir, and a really enlightening novel for anyone looking to better grasp the Native American experience during a period fraught with change.

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like archives and family histories, this book is for you! It's an incredible story of the first American Indian Baseball League. I enjoyed the family history told and how the author weaves back and forth through history and incorporated original primary documents from the archives!

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really inventive and thought-provoking. So good

[Gary Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Considering LeAnne Howe’s Miko Kings: An Indian Baseball Story as purely a baseball novel will miss much of its literary texture. Yes, there is a baseball team that is central to the plot. The Miko Kings of Ada, Oklahoma were part of the Indian Territory League in the early 1900s. They played against other Indian teams, as well as white teams, including an epic series against players from the local military base. Hope Little Leader is the team’s pitcher, and his delivery is part athletic and part spiritual. Sixty years later, we again meet Hope Little Leader in a nursing home, and his hands are gone.

Forty years later, a young descendant of the tribes (“half Choctaw and half Sac and Fox”) pauses her career as an international journalist and moves back to Oklahoma to claim a house inherited from her grandmother. While rehabbing her new home, she finds a bag filled with documents related to the Miko Kings.

Readers move back and forth through time, just as one of the characters seems to be untethered to scientific notions of time and space. Woven through this complex but accessible plot are threads about the interconnectedness of language, story, and culture, particularly Indian culture. Author LeAnne Howe, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, also provides insights into the cultural effects of American governmental policies on Indian life, including boarding schools and land allotment programs.

Howe connects all of this to baseball, including how the game has been a sacred part of Indian life for centuries, and how cultural identity and stereotyping affected the Miko Kings and the formation of the Indian Territory League. In addition to the drama and tragedy, there is a lot more going on in Miko Kings, including a circus fire, John Lennon, skunk farming, and a legendary black activist who loved and abandoned Hope Little Leader. Although I didn’t want this book to end, Miko Kings concludes with all of these plot and thematic elements coming together in several satisfying bursts of clarity.

[Geoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful post-modern Native American Baseball book. Delightful to read. The movement through and the conversation about time was very rewarding.

[Kyle Aisteach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.

Fair warning: Like much of what I'm currently reading, this book is not terribly accessible. Read it slowly. Read it patiently. It's worth it in the end. Howe's storytelling is, to say the least, non-linear. She doesn't bother to fill in all the gaps for you. But though the book feels like a collection of snippets, every word ends up being critically important (including what's in the illustrations).

This is contemporary speculative fiction doing what it should do: pushing boundaries, challenging prejudices, defying expectations, and hitting at the heart of a character.

My only serious complaint with this piece is more a complaint with the time-travel genre than with the book in general. Part of the resolution involves history having been altered. Yet much of the book and its characters derive from the event that gets changed, and we're given no indication of how subsequent events changed. This isn't Howe's main point, however, so she can be forgiven, even if it does niggle at the average SF reader.

Ome.

[Brigitte · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fragmented narrative is a wonderful illustration of a nonlinear concept of time. Howe's work is not only innovative and thus refreshing, but it is also a fascinating opening into a culture that is still silenced. . . . The obviously thoroughly researched historical facts and their inclusion into the narrative never feel cumbersome in the hands of such a wordsmith. I highly recommend this novel.

[Kristen Suagee-beauduy · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're looking for historical fiction with real character development, this is it. Miko Kings is a successful attempt at piecing together a moment in history far too few people know about with exceptional storytelling. To make things extra awesome, there's a brilliant thread that allows the characters to examine Anglo versus Choctaw perceptions of time and space.

[Yair · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very intriguing story made more so by interesting shifts in narrative and some well placed post modern additions. Some predictable events and a bit of uninspired dialogue here and there don't mar the overall story that much. Decent read with spots of profundity.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good story about the Indian baseball League in the early 1900's. The story has elements of mystery, deception, conniving and time travel. My only hesitation about it as a book group choice is that it is a little hard to follow. I'd need to reread it to be sure.

[Margo Solod · Rating 5 out of 5]

what a lovely wild ride. definately howe's best book to date. she manages to mix indians, baseball, time travel, mathmatics and oral history together and come out with an eminently readable novel.

[Grace]

I LIKE stories with Indians in them,but this was so tedious that I had to stop reading it.

[Mimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I actually liked this book better than Shell Shaker, what with the time travel and all.

[Sarbej2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is phenomenal. I was fortunate enough to meet LeAnne Howe, and she is as lovely and brilliant as this novel.

[Abby]

It's a strange, strange story. I feel like I should go back to the beginning again.

[Ron Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating reading, well done and informative. I'm a baseball nut, a Native American and an Okie; and I learned a lot of things I never knew. Great work.

[Chandler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imaginative read. Who knew that baseball, ghosts, and Native Americans could meld together for such an interesting read?

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read twice - Jan 2013 and March 2013 for Lit class

[Christopher Mcilroy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full of the pleasures of story, anecdote, and baseball, but also an imaginative, engaging meditation on the confluence of classical and Native views of physics and time.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Howe does an admirable job of juggling numerous character viewpoints while moving back and forth in time and bringing history alive.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

In many respects Howe accomplished in Miko Kings what I like to see in historical fiction: an engaging and informative depiction of characters some of whom according to her author’s note ‘are based on historical figures.’ She added that ‘….there were many Indian baseball teams in both Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory.’

The informational elements of the novel included a number of things. First, there were powerful portrayals of the harmful impact which residential boarding schools had on Native American children in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Second, the manner in which the Dawes Act of 1887 allowed EuroAmericans to steal lands which had been promised to the Native Americans in the treaties they had previously signed with the government. Third, the racism which affected the relations between whites and Native Americans and African Americans. Racial tensions between Native Americans and African Americans were also depicted. Finally, Howe provided a lot of information about Native American spirituality through her imaginative use of magical realism. Also portrayed were NA family relations and their long history of playing games which are similar to baseball.

In addition to employing magical realism effectively the author did some other things skillfully which enhanced my engagement with the book. Using Choctaw vocabulary in the dialogue a timely way made the characters seem authentic. This was either translated or put into context to assist in understanding its meaning. Additionally, the use of local newspaper reports of the early 20th century and the creation of a childhood diary of one of the characters made the novel more appealing.

IMHO, MK was flawed in two modest respects. First, Howe’s presentations of Native American concepts of time, space, and language were a bit obtuse at times. Second, she could have explained the Dawes Act more thoroughly for those readers who might be unfamiliar with it.

Overall, however, the book was well worth reading. Enough so that I will read another one of Howe’s books in the coming weeks.

[Luisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly this was a little too abstract for me. There are definitely some great parts and great characters. I enjoyed bits and pieces. But I just couldn't get a handle on how everything fit together and when it all ended I think I only managed to connect a few of the pieces so I left just confused. I think it may a stylistic thing to a certain extent, maybe I'm not as interested in those kind of obtuse and shifting narratives. The language is sometimes very poetic and flowing and there are definitely things to like here. But I don't think I understood it well enough, whether that be the fault of the book itself or my own.

[KL · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1907, in a town called Ada, there was an all-Native baseball team called the Miko Kings. But their story has been lost to history - that is, until a writer named Lena discovers a mysterious package in the walls of her grandmother's house, along with an mysterious spirit named Ezol Day.

LeAnne Howe's historical novel about "space and time and baseball as medicine" in Indian Territory is eloquently written, a little experimental and frequently absolutely fascinating. It was not what I was expecting, to tell you the truth, but it's a unique story and an enjoyable read.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Appreciated the concept and the fact that it’s an Own Voices book dealing with Native Americans, history, languages, time, baseball. Totally baffled by the execution. Willing to believe that there’s a lot of cultural context I can’t comprehend and this book is not For Me; however, it really was not for me.

[Jennifer Chounard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read book for everone.

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baseball! Ghosts! Research!

[Jason Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Na anole pa achukmahni li. Shilup, toli, vbi, bvska, hopaii, kvtos, ohoyo imma micha bvlbancha….moma kvt achukma.

[Ellie Singer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many books you read in high school are forgettable. This was not. Mind-bending in the best of ways.

[Sarah ^~^ · Rating 3 out of 5]

pretty fire but my brain hates sports so bad,,. I tried to focus so hard it was just not happening for me personally

[Bradthad Codgeroger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astonishing novel. Baseball is a truly American sport!