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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The writing shines!, September 19, 2004
This review is from: Screwball: A Novel (Paperback)
A solid debut for former reporter David Ferrell, who recently left the L.A. Times to pursue a career as a novelist full-time. When his next novel comes out it'll definitely be on my "must read" list. In Screwbell, Mr. Ferrell uses a flowing writing style and a formidable knowledge of baseball to take a dark, humorous, insightful look at what the sport has become. The zany baseball world brought to life by Ferrell's prose begins with rookie phenon Ron Kane, whose blazing fastball has given the sad sack Boston Red Sox a chance to win a World Series. "Kane emerged from the showers, his red hair hanging in wet arcs on his forehead. His freckled torso rose up from gray boxer shorts like a genie from a lamp, a V-shaped fuselage of sinew and steel, lean but hard." Ferrell uses Kane's twisted off-field activities to construct a world where every ball player has a laughable quirk and the Red Sox management will go to any lengths to achieve a World Series championship. The writing shines. David Witty Taiwan
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Six murderswhen you think about it, it's almost nothing.", July 23, 2003
Red Sox fans, and fans of any team that has consistently failed to win The Big One, will identify with the emotional and ethical dilemma in this black-humored novel about the lengths to which Red Sox management will go to protect their players so they can win the World Series. It's late in the season, and it looks as if this will finally be the Big Year, the year in which the Red Sox will overcome the Curse of the Bambino and bring home a World Series championship--if they can only keep the world from discovering that one of their players has a few unusual problems with his control--he is a serial murderer! Desperate to win, the front office is willing to rationalize and cover up even multiple murders ("Those murders, they're over and done with. Nothing we can do to change that") to end the agony of watching the team go down to defeat yet again. Ferrell writes a fast-paced baseball thriller filled with absurdities and told from a wryly casual point of view. In the opening pages, Ferrell offers a few red herrings about who the murderer might be from the large collection of dysfunctional players on the team, but the suspense disappears almost immediately as the killer is identified in the first third of the book. This is not a novel in which characters are individualized or undergo any major epiphanies. We know only a few characteristics about each one, and we don't identify with manager "Fish" Sharkey as much as we empathize with the frustration he's experienced--the same frustration fans have experienced with all the Red Sox "almost" teams over the years. The action and the murders both proceed in relatively straightforward and uncomplicated fashion, and as the bloody season progresses, management never seriously questions whether there are any values more important than winning. The author is clearly a Red Sox fan of long duration who recognizes the symptoms of Boston's communal frustration and understands the lengths to which some rabid fans and supporters might be willing to go for the first World Series victory since 1918. He pokes good-humored fun at management, the press, agents, players, and desperate fans, and his clear inclusion of himself among the fans makes the book less a hard-edged satire than an amusing meditation on "what if." Screwball will probably not win any prizes for its mystery or its complexity, but in its depiction of the excitement of baseball and the lure of October's biggest baseball prize, it is a delightful way to spend a warm summer afternoon--if one can't get out to the ballpark. 3 stars for mystery and style, 4 stars for fun. Mary Whipple
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Satire or farce?, June 7, 2003
SCREWBALL is based on an intriguing situation: The general manager of the Boston Red Sox, suffering from the Curse of the Babe, is confronted by a video showing Ron Kane, his superstar pitcher (who may be the greatest who ever lived) disposing of a decapitated body. From there the focus moves to the general manager, Neville Wulfmeyer, and the niece of the owner of the BoSox who are being blackmailed by the sender of the video. This is where the book begins to go haywire. Wulfmeyer has no scruples. At one point he suggests they kill someone else to throw the police off the trail. In another instance, he kidnaps the manager's wife to avoid paying a bonus. Certainly hyperbole is a tried and true method in satire, but Ferrell has about as much subtlety as a gangsta rapper. Kane throws the baseball 111 mph on a consistent basis. Every single member of the Red Sox is a ding-a-ling. One of them tosses a teargas cannister into a carload full of nuns. Another holds up a liquor store. About the only stabilizing influence is the manager, Augie "Big Fish" Sharkey. He's developing a king-sized ulcer, guzzling Pepto Bismol like water, but he tries to do the right thing, investigating the murders on his own. Ferrell does him an injustice in the end with a completely unrealistic resolution, the implication of which would destroy Major League Baseball if it were true. Something else that bothered me throughout the book was an Honus Wagner snuff can Sharkey carries as a good luck piece (until it's stolen). One of the reasons Wagner's baseball cards are worth over a half million a piece is because he objected to his image being used to sell tobacco to children, a hypocritical stand to take if he actually chewed the stuff (which I doubt).
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