The Big R: An Internal Auditing Action Adventure, by D. Larry Crumbley, Douglass E. Ziegenfuss and John J. O’Shaunessy. Academic Press. $25.
There is an old cartoon of a person with a cartful of groceries on a supermarket checkout line under a sign that reads “10 items or less.” The person behind him asks, “Are you a math major that can’t read or an English major who can’t count?”
This seems an appropriate concept to consider when discussing The Big R. If The Big R was a movie, it would be Plan 9 from Outer Space,” the sci-fi flick deemed by many critics to be the worst film of all time.
While the premise of The Big R is mildly interesting — a serial killer plying his art on the anniversaries of perfect games — the execution, if you’ll pardon the pun, leaves much to be desired.
Quoting the book’s blurb at length, this collaborative effort casts itself as a “teaching novel, designed to supplement an auditing, internal auditing, or graduate investment course . . . Students will enjoy the suspense of this psychological thriller that integrates the fundamentals of internal auditing and brings its applications to life, and they will learn important techniques and concepts as the mystery unfolds and Fleet Walker moves closer to nabbing the killers.”
Where to begin? First of all, as a book written for numbers crunchers, the art of story-telling seems to have gotten lost along the way.
The characters are unbelievable. M. Fleet Walker is an African-American (not unlike his namesake, Moses Fleetwood Walker, generally credited as the first black player in the professional ranks). Fleet is a baseball fan with a special expertise in perfect games. He is also, conveniently enough, an internal accountant with the New York Yankees, which seems to justify his spewing financial discourses at the least provocation. Despite his employment by one of the sternest owners in the game, he seems to have a lot of free time to aid in the investigation.
Fleet’s buddy, Fred Campbell, is a member of SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) and a devotee of baseball in the 19th century who inexplicably disappears from the story somewhere around the midpoint. (Incidentally, there really is a prominent SABR member named Fred Campbell; I wonder if he knows how his name has been sound roundly abused.)
Then there is Special Agent William Douglass of the FBI. Aside from being unable to find the killer and forced to use Fleet as his major source of information, Douglass is impossibly ignorant about anything to do with baseball, thereby allowing Walker and Campbell the chance to give him those badly needed lessons on the national pastime as well as accountancy.
Baseball fans will find The Big R too condescending, as Walker and Campbell explain the nuances of the game to the authorities as if they were idiot children. And would there even be the luxury of time, in pursuit of such a nefarious criminal, to listen to that long-winded, micro-meticulous description. For all the ad nausea recounting the perfect games, there are several unforgivable factual errors, especially in a book aimed at those who work with the utmost precision. For example:
The authors have Ruth Steinhagen shooting Eddie Waitkus, first baseman for the Phillies in 1949, in the head, rather than the chest. Waitkus was the model for the Roy Hobbs character in Bernard Malamud’s The Natural.
Mark McGwire is credited with breaking Babe Ruth’s, totally ignoring Roger Maris, who set the standard of 61 in ‘61.
In a lengthy chapter about Milt Pappas’ near-perfect game, the Cubs catcher’s name is misspelled as Huntley, rather than Hundley.
The Big R is full of lines like “This day in Dodger Stadium was different. Somewhere in the stands was a serial killer, and Douglass had to catch him,” and “The temperature was 70 and there was a 5 mile per hour wind blowing from the north.” At one point, the authors offer the following description of Ron Hunt, the Mets’ second-baseman, during Jim Bunning’s 1964 “perfecto”: “Part Cherokee, Hunt crowded the plate.” What in the name of George Armstrong Custer does Hunt’s heritage have to do with anything, other than perhaps denote his bravery? (Hunt was known as an expert in the art of getting hit by pitches.)
There is also the specter of biological weapons used by the killer (once finally cornered, he exclaims “You wouldn’t dare shoot me . . . this is deadly sarin.”) which seems in poor taste given the present situation. That, at least, can be forgiven since the book was presumably published before September 11. Ignorance prevents me from commenting on the accuracy and relevance of the accounting information, but it seems extremely forced, as if the authors were trying to sneak some unpleasant educational material into the fun stuff without anyone noticing. Unfortunately, they left out the “fun stuff,” too.
***
To see just where The Big R fits in among the all-time worst baseball novels, I asked Andy McCue, Chair of SABR’s Bibliography Committee and author of Baseball by the Books: A History and Complete Bibliography of Baseball Fiction (William C. Brown, 1991), for his considered opinion. Along with The Big R, McCue includes the following, along with his comments, for the ten worst offerings:
- Ball Numbers: The Year They Did Not Play Ball, by David Hullinger (Vantage Press, 1992): A treatise on probability, very thinly disguised as a novel about the 1999 season, where striking players are not replaced. Instead, the season is “played” by drawing scores out of a hat. Imagine the suspense of the plot and the depth of the characters.
- 64 Intruder, by Gregory T. Glading (University Editions, Inc., 1995): A Philadelphia fan is offered the opportunity to return to September, 1964 and stop Chico Ruiz from stealing home against the Phils, an event he feels started the team’s tailspin that season. Set against a background of family and personal troubles, all of which are mawkish.
- Andy: The First Switch-Pitcher by Al Carmona (Self-published, 1982): The plot is fairly standard. Andy, a hick who’s never heard of baseball, can throw rocks around corners with both hands. He leads a team to World Series victory. It’s the style that sets this one apart: The first 45 percent of the book is a fairly poorly written children’s book followed by one chapter of near pornography before reverting to a children’s book.
- Yankee Belle, by Richard V. Bennett (Carlton Press, Inc., 1993): A successful righthander who needs cash wheedles his way into an additional spot in the New York Yankees’ rotation as a lefthander. He keeps the deception going until the seventh game of the World Series, when the righty must relieve the lefty to win the game.
- California Rush by Sherwood Kiraly (Macmillan, 1990): On an objective list, this probably doesn’t make it. But this comes from a major publisher and is still filled with characters without the complexity for a television show and enough improbable plot twists for an afternoon soap opera.
- A Season to Remember, by Lynda Stowe Landers (Avalon Books, 1989): An up-and- coming woman reporter falls for a Ryne Sandberg-ish superstar. Fair amount of game description. However, to quote, “His smile spread slowly as he took her hand and lifted the palm to his lips, dropping slow kisses between her fingers. ‘You don’t know what complicated is until you try hitting a split-finger fastball,’ he said.”
- Play Ball!, by Mark Freeman (Ballantine, 1989): Play Ball! is actually the first of a six-book series following three friends from high school to the World Series in a couple of years. This series is so totally devoid of redeeming social values that it must be mentioned. Most children’s books, even if they’re simplistic or overly preachy, play some part in socializing America’s youth. I suppose these books do, too. But, if so, I want no part of these spoiled, selfish kids who have no goals beyond themselves.
- Bases Loaded II: Second Season, by A.L. Singer (Scholastic, Inc., 1991): This book was based on a video game, but balances that with some very stiff writing. A major league owner with a gambling problem programs his manager’s computer to make bad decisions. But don’t worry, the good guys eventually triumph.
- Taking on the Team, by Anonymous (Star Distributors, 1989): Again, I ignored most pornography in compiling this list, but this book has enough plot and more than enough straining-to-rise-above-the-genre to merit inclusion. A young woman decides to present herself as a reward to a major league team’s player of the game. Much pseudo-psychological maundering.
A version of this review appeared on Purebaseball.com in 2004.
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