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DEAD BALL
by R. D. Rosen
Walker & Co., November 2001
$23.95
ISBN: 0802733662


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Imagine that Providence Rhode Island has a major league team appropriately called the Jewels, since Providence / Attleboro was once the center of the US costume jewelry industry. Even more incredible, the Providence Jewels slugger, Moss Cooley is within spitting distance of Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak. Before he leaves the clubhouse, after hitting in his 44th consecutive game, one of the parking attendants brings a large heavy box with Moss' name on it into the dressing room. Cooley opens the box to find a beheaded cast iron lawn jockey. When he gets home,to Roger William's Estates in Cranston, the jockey's head is waiting for him.

15 years before, during the Jewels first season. Harvey Blissberg had been their center fielder. He retired and had been a PI for 11 years and then a motivational speaker for 4. Now he sits on his couch at home in Cambridge, Mass. watching old sports documentaries on ESPN. The Jewels management ask Harvey to become the new "motivational coach" for the team, but, in reality, to act as Moss' bodyguard until the streak ends.

The Jewish ex-professional baseball player and the black superstar baseball player become friendly, and little by little, Harvey learns that Moss isn't just another big dumb baseball player, but a sensitive, intelligent man with an agenda of his own. During the early part of the 20th century, white southerners would torture and hang black boys and men for no good reason. They would make a party out of the affair and photograph each other with the hanging body. Moss carries a photo of a man hanged during the 1930's. It was his grandfather. When Harvey finds this out, he looks behind the jockey and hate mail, into the past to find why Moss is being victimized.

I was sure I would dislike this book, since I find professional sports boring and Providence is one of my least favorite cities. I was wrong. Rosen makes the game and the people interesting and exciting again (I stopped following baseball when the Giants left New York, when it was a game and not big business as it is today.) Bits and pieces of baseball history are woven into the story as is Providence and its landmarks including Haven's Brothers, a prototype the first diner. The problem with reading ARCs is that there is longer to wait for the next one in the series. This is only the fifth since 1984. I'll spend the time until the next one comes out searching out the earlier books.

Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, August 2001

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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