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CHICAGO
TRIBUNE
An Innovative First Novel By a Student of Baseball
By Kerry Luft, A Tribune editor
The
problem with novels about baseball is that too often they are
imperfect books about the perfect game.
Some
are better than others, notably Mark Harris' "The Southpaw" and
his other Henry Wiggin novels. Bernard Malamud's "The Natural"
was a terrific story before Hollywood messed it up. W.P. Kinsella's
fantasies, such as "Shoeless Joe," have a huge following. Now
comes Kevin Baker's innovative first novel, which is like a Texas
League single blooped into the outfield.
The
pluperfect player in this case is John Barr, who like Malamud's
Roy Hobbs appears on a team one day and proceeds to set records
one after the other. He is a perennial all-star and frequently
the National League's most valuable player; he is a right fielder
nonpareil.
But
like too many other fictional stars, John Barr's life is a mystery.
He doesn't even shower in the clubhouse after the game; no one
knows anything about his past, and he has no roommate on the road.
He doesn't even fool around. All he does, apparently, is play
ball for the New York Mets.
His
story is told by a series of narrators, most notably Rapid Ricky
Falls, also known as "the Old Swizzlehead," who plays alongside
Barr in center field. Others include Barry Busby, an old-line
baseball writer; manager Charlie Stanzi, who is not so affectionately
known as the Little Maniac; and several teammates of Barr's. There
is also an omniscient narrator called "The Color Commentary."
With
so many voices, it would be easy to confuse a reader, but Baker's
structure works. In fact, this approach accentuates the mysteries
surrounding John Barr, because it becomes clear that no one knows
anything about him.
Falls
is the main narrator, and he tells how the champion Mets slowly
begin to unravel after Stanzi is named manager. Stanzi plants
doubt in the ballplayers' heads, and one after another they find
their confidence fading. But Barr seems immune to the rantings
and continues to lash out line drives like an automaton. "The
key to John Barr, though, was the sheer fear factor," Falls tells
the reader early on. "A player that great, he becomes even greater
because they know what he is. The other team's pitchers, they
get just that little bit more nervous, worryin' about John Barr
comin' up. They get so intent on keepin' the bases cleared for
him that they're more likely to walk a batter, or hang a curveball.
When he's on first, the second baseman and shortstop get that
little bit more nervous. . . . Even the other team's hitters throw
themselves off tryin' not to hit the ball to right field."
But
then, just as the Mets are about to play for the world championship,
Barr falls apart after receiving a note found in his dead mother's
papers. He can no longer hit or field; he is benched for the first
time in his career just when his team needs him the most. It is
up to Falls and Ellie Jay, a sportswriter who secretly loves Barr,
to figure out the mystery and get the hero back in the game.
Barr's
past is slowly unveiled through a series of flashbacks. Although
most readers won't be able to figure out Barr's problem before
it is revealed, a dedicated reader of baseball history and biography
might.
In
fact, this book is almost ideal for a student of baseball history.
Baker is clearly a dedicated fan, and he has based many of the
characters on real players. Falls, for example, has more than
a few of the characteristics of onetime Yankee center fielder
Mickey Rivers, while Stanzi, the manager, seems to have qualities
of Eddie Stanky and Billy Martin. As for John Barr, he combines
elements of Ted Williams, Ty Cobb and Roberto Clemente. Trying
to figure out who each character is based on may be the most enjoyable
part of the novel.
©
Copyright 1993 Chicago Tribune Company
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ENTERTAINMENT
WEEKLY
Good for Extra Bases
Review by Gene Lyons
Contrary
to the professors, "magic realism" wasn't invented by Gabriel
Garcia Marquez, author of Bill Clinton's favorite novel, One Hundred
Years of Solitude, but by John R. Tunis, author of The Kid From
Thompkinsville and a shelfful of baseball novels for boys. What's
more, despite all the solemnity that has crept into baseball books
since Tunis' heyday in the '40s and '50s, he remains the master
of the nail-biting pennant race, the brilliant, game- saving catch,
and the thunderously dramatic home run. Anyhow, my bet is that
Kevin Baker, author of the ingeniously seductive new baseball
novel Sometimes You See It Coming,has read a good deal
more Tunis than he has Garcia Marquez, and has attended closely
to the antics of the game's more preposterous real-life figures
as well. One need not be a baseball historian to recognize in
manager Charlie Stanzi, "the Little Maniac" to his players, some
traits of the late Billy Martin. Nor of the insufferable Yankees'
owner George Steinbrenner in Ellsworth "the Great White Father"
Pippin. Not that Baker's story of the wondrously gifted but enigmatic
John Barr has any basis in reality. While the plot borrows celebrated
incidents from the lives of players as dissimilar as Ted Williams
and Roberto Clemente, it's the psychology of the game, in the
broadest sense, that fascinates first-novelist Baker-the origins
of his hero's almost mystical ability (and his need) to escape
into the virtual reality of baseball.
Told
by a series of raffish, profane narrators, including all of the
novel's major characters except the secretive hero himself, Sometimes
You See It Coming is anything but a novel for boys. Indeed, Baker
devotes so much space to the antics of bullpen groupies and philandering
third basemen that it detracts somewhat from his book's serious
core-dealing as it does with topics like pathological jealousy
and child abuse. For all that, the finale is pure Tunis-style
cornpone. "The last inning of the last game of the World Series.
The fastest, meanest pitcher against the best hitter in the game.
There was no way," Baker assures us, "you could avoid it in any
good story." Well, yeah, you could. But Sometimes You See It
Comingis an entertaining debut all the same. B+
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THE
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Gloom and Boom Unhappy Hero, Spectacular Baseball Exploits Make
for Well-Told Tale With Split Personality
By John Wilson
Nearly
all baseball fiction is written on a plane of exaggeration in
one respect or another. So it is with Sometimes You See It
Coming. John Barr, the hero, could have been cloned from "The
Natural" and its mythic protagonist, Roy Hobbs. And the comedy
reminds of Dan Jenkins' lunatic sports dreamworld. Barr shows
up out of nowhere at a minor-league ballpark, unknown, unscouted,
unfathomable. He goes on to major-league stardom, his background
and the cause of his vacuum personality still mysteries.
The
novel has a split personality. There is the mystery of Barr, the
motor that drives the narrative. This part of the story is told
in gloomy verisimilitude, an unhappy chronicle of a down-and-out,
dysfunctional family. These sketches are sandwiched between slices
of Barr's baseball career, the diamond world painted in over-the-wall
slapstick accompanied by Barr's sometimes superhuman feats on
the field.
Author
Kevin Baker shows a remarkable understanding of baseball, and
his fine storytelling in this first novel suggests even better
things to come.
©
Copyright The Houston Chronicle
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THE
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
A
Home Run for Baseball Fans
By Linda Gebroe
Kevin
Baker's first novel is full of tales of the game that fans might
have spun in Midwestern barber shops in the 1930s. Its fictional
protagonist is John Barr, baseball's greatest hero and mystery
man extraordinaire.
"He
could do everything on a ballfield; that was beyond dispute,"
we learn. "In an era of designated hitters, platoon players, spot
starters, short relievers, and middle-inning relievers, Barr could
play the whole game."
Although
the novel is set in the present day, Barr is nothing like the
superstars of the 1990s. He shuns fan and media attention, opting
instead to dress quietly and retreat home (nobody is sure where)
after each game. When there are fights on the field or controversy
in the locker room, Barr is nowhere to be found.
"There
was a certain quality of danger that attached to him," the narrator
tells us. "His appearance at the big moment almost always guaranteed
that something would happen, and usually something that entailed
a ball whacked viciously into the furthest reaches of the stadium,
and his opponents sent stumbling desperately after it."
SWIZZLEHEAD'S
SLUMP
The
story is told primarily from the point of view of Barr's teammate,
Old Swizzlehead, who describes one season in which the team overpowers
everyone in the league and marches into the World Series. Old
Swizzlehead continually wonders about Barr but does nothing until
Barr goes into a mind-boggling slump, just when the team needs
him most.
As
Old Swizzlehead talks of the current baseball season, Baker layers
the story with flashbacks from Barr's boyhood and adolescence.
The structure becomes much like "The Prince of Tides''-a horrible
and buried family story haunts the adult hero until a sudden revelation
sets everything straight. The story has a sense of folklore to
it, with nicknames for players like Big Bo Bigbee, Good Stuff
Goodson and No-Hit Hitt.
SHARP
DESCRIPTION
Baker
knows the game and describes it well: "(Barr) crouched on the
balls of his feet, precisely balanced so that he could either
dive back to third or take off for home. He kept one eye on the
pitcher, the other open for the third baseman or the shortstop
moving behind him for the pick-off. The pitcher eyed him back,
then unwound awkwardly, making an extra, crucial motion before
he whipped the ball over to third. The hitch gave him all the
time he needed to throw himself back, hooking one hand around
to the base."
Of
the book's flaws, Baker spends too much time foreshadowing, and
while he does, there's no real reason to care about John Barr.
It is only halfway through the book when Barr goes into his slump
that the story gets really interesting. Once that happens, the
book becomes a page-turner.
©
1993 The Chronicle Publishing Co.
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SUN-SENTINEL,
FORT LAUDERDALE
Rookie
Novelist Blasts a Homer
By Chauncey Mabe
Baseball novels are a little like power hitters. There are plenty
of them around, but not many who are anything special. Bernard
Malamud's The Natural comes to mind, if you like your baseball
self-consciously literary. You Know Me, Al, by Ring Lardner, is
funny, brutish and knowing. W.P. Kinsella combines a Canadian's
love for the American pastime with a joyful, goofy mysticism in
Shoeless Joe, which was turned into the movie Field of Dreams.
The best ever, the Babe Ruth of baseball novelists, is Mark Harris,
whose trilogy (The Southpaw, Bang the Drum Slowly, It Looked
Like Forever) is vernacular, hilarious and as true-to-life
as a hard slide into second base. His narrator/hero, Henry Wiggins,
is the Huck Finn of baseball.
A
novel that comes anywhere close to the standard set by Harris
is something to celebrate, especially with major-league baseball
soon to begin in South Florida. Kevin Baker, a phenom offering
up his first novel, Sometimes You See It Coming(Crown,
$ 20, 322 pp.), may not be up to that level, but he is close.
Sometimes You See It Comingis the story of the greatest
ballplayer of all time, the fictional John Barr, who plays for
the New York Mets. He is a player who hits for power and average,
plays the outfield like an antelope with a bushel basket, and
whose game peaks under the pressure of championship competition.
But he remains a closed-mouthed enigma with no friends.
A HAUNTED PAST
“(B)y
the end he was still no more than a redoubtable shadow to the
flies, the fans, even his own teammates. You could not say he
was loved, except perhaps by Ricky Falls or Ellie Jay, Queen of
Sportswriters, who loved him not so much for the raw talent but
the dedication that she perceived. For Barr played wrapped up
in himself, in the narrow devotion of hitting the ball...No visible
family, friends, women or interest of any kind outside a ballpark."
Of
course, there must be a reason for a person to be so emotionally
withdrawn. Ellie Jay, a character perfectly suited for Kathleen
Turner should this book ever be made into a movie, figures it
must be something in his past. And Barr's past comes back to haunt
him in his 13th season. His mother dies, he learns of a bizarre
statement in her will-and his game goes to pieces down the pennant
stretch. Fans and sportswriters assume that Barr, now in his 30s,
is simply losing his touch to age. But Ricky Falls and Ellie Jay
know better.
LARGER-THAN-LIFE
COMEDY
And
it is the near-friend, Ricky, not Ellie Jay the potential lover,
who stands the best chance of understanding Barr's dilemma. The
two players have been together since Barr showed up unannounced
at a minor-league stadium in the Coal and Coke League of West
Virginia and demanded a tryout. Barr is white, Falls black, which
I mention only because it is an important aspect of their complex,
mostly silent relationship.
Sometimes
You See It Comingis almost as much Ricky's story as it is
that of John Barr. Whereas Barr is a player of mythical proportions,
sort of like a baseball version of Larry Bird, Ricky is simply
an excellent professional athlete, the second-best player on a
team blessed with the greatest ever. A jock to the core, he is
crude, willfully ignorant, with a weakness for the annies, determined
not to grow up, and, despite these faults, extremely likable.
Baker rounds out the cast with authentic baseball figures. For
the sadistic, meddlesome manager, Charlie Stanzi, the author clearly
had the late Billy Martin in mind. The book is bawdy, insightful,
and the baseball scenes are both genuine and comically larger
than life.
It
is this last attribute that leads me to rank Sometimes You
See It Cominga little below Harris' classic trilogy. Harris
writes of players who are exactly life size, and to my taste that
gives it more literary and spiritual weight. But Baker turns in
a remarkable performance for a rookie, and anyone who likes either
baseball or good writing, will find it impressive and enjoyable.
©
1993 Sun-Sentinel Company Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale)
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USA
TODAY
Sometimes'
Baseball Isn't a Metaphor
By Ben Brown
The
baseball season's a week old now. So you already should be feeling
queasy from the annual overdose of Baseball as Mythic Poetry.
First-time
novelist Kevin Baker, 34, has just the antidote: Sometimes
You See It Coming(Crown, $ 20). "Baseball is not really a
metaphor for life," Baker says. "It's not like life at all. It's
a lot cleaner and clearer."
On
the other hand, the people who play the game are not necessarily
clean or clear at all. It's Baker's accomplishment to have created
a surprisingly entertaining read with an entirely believable roster
of talented neurotics and morons who care almost exclusively about
two things—winning and themselves.
Fans
are irrelevant. And the beat writers are "flies," as in flies
attracted to leftovers. The central figure is an obsessive superstar
with a troubled past. And there's an egomaniacal manager who sabotages
his team's chances to inflate his genius reputation.
Baker
insists characters and events—even the most comically outrageous
ones—are drawn from stories of real players and teams. So
fans can play the game of matching fictional characters with the
real-life figures who inspired them. Not a one is an unblemished
hero. Which might be about as close as you can get to a metaphor
for real life.
©
1993 Gannett Company, Inc.
