THE BIG HIT

This baseball mystery gets off to a sluggish start. Rookie Johnnie Price turned in erratic performances for the Hawks. But the answer to the cause of his sometimes brilliant, sometimes dispirited playing was clarified in a gun battle at the ball park when detectives revealed his identity -- a fugitive material witness to the slaying of a member of a narcotics ring. Though the climax is effective we doubt that reader attention will be held through the scoreless first few chapters.