Oh, look: Alison Gordon again.
Title: The Dead Pull Hitter
Published: McClelland and Stewart, 1988
# Pages: 216
Availability: Out of print, but findable used.
Author: Alison Gordon
Who Is: Former Jays beat writer for the Toronto Star and author of Foul Balls, already reviewed in an article much like this one
What It's About: It's a mystery novel about Kate Henry, Titans beat writer for the Toronto Planet, who ends up investigating a double murder in the middle of the Titans' pennant race.
What It's Really About: "Write what you know!"
Secret Hero: John Mayberry (see below)
How's the Writing? As a mystery novel, it's decent but unspectacular. Gordon deserves credit for trying something new, and not for the last time: in each book in this series she tries to provide some kind of new spin. She never just repeats her efforts of the previous book. And after all, she's not used to writing for this medium, never mind this genre. Gordon's got nothing to be embarrassed about here.
One aspect of this book is that it's a little bit of a roman a clef. I won't go so far as to say that the players of the Toronto Titans are exactly the Toronto Blue Jays (for one thing, the Jesse Barfield analogue is revealed as gay, and there's no way that Gordon would reveal that, true or not, about a real person. Therefore, no direct correspondence is intended), but it'll be obvious to anyone who reads Foul Balls and Dead Pull Hitter back to back that the Titans are inspired by the Blue Jays.
For your convenience:
MGR Red O'Brien
Coaches: Slick Marshall, Dummy Doran
C Gloves Gardiner (Buck Martinez?)
1B Tiny Washington (John Mayberry)
2B Alejandro 'Alex' Jones (Tony Fernandez?)
SS Billy 'Owl' Wise
3B Stinger Swain
LF Joe 'Preacher' Kelsey (Jesse Barfield)
CF David Sloane (Barry Bonnell?)
RF Eddie Carter
DH Pedro Jorge 'Sultan' Sanchez (Rico Carty)
Bench (1B) Kid Cooper (Fred McGriff, I guess)
Bench (DH) Orca Elliott
SP* Tony 'Bony' Costello
SP Steve Thorson (Dave Stieb)
SP Doc Dudley
SP* Phil 'Flakey' Patterson (Bill Lee)
SP Harry Belcher
RP* Mark 'Archie' Griffin
RP Moe 'Goober' Grabowski
RP Slider Holmes
Notice something about this roster? Everybody has a freaking nickname. I find it kind of annoying, actually, but it probably serves Gordon well in that it makes it easier for the reader to tell them all apart. So, you know, fine.
Oh yeah: one other thing I liked. At the end, there's a scene where Kate Henry is all by herself and in danger from the murderer. The thing I liked about it is, it's not because she's an idiot and took too many chances; in fact, she told the cops about the important stuff at her first opportunity. So that's a plus.
I don't know how often I'm going to end up rereading this book, but I will say that I'm looking forward to reacquainting myself with the rest of this series.
I should note that the bar-and-banquet lounge of the Titans' stadium is called the Batter's Box.
Sabremetric Corner: n/a
Anecdote: n/a
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20080911230113894