- May 12, 2025
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An unexpected conversation with former Major League Baseball player Jackie Brandt was so thoroughly entertaining to a Lakewood Ranch accountant that it prompted him to become a novelist.
W. Kenneth Tyler Jr., has never been a writer by trade, but listening to the fascinating stories of others sparked ideas that eventually became his novel, “Hunting the Red Fox.”
Tyler’s bio on the inside cover of the book playfully reads that he “spent four decades successfully writing some of the most compelling and persuasive prose imaginable to various governmental taxing authorities.”
“Most CPA’s don’t have the same kind of sense of humor I have,” Tyler said. “Pay attention to everything you read, there’s a lot of dry humor in my book.”
While Tyler would have loved to pen a novel years ago, he was running a CPA firm and raising a family. He also doubted he had the chops to craft a completely fictional novel.
He needed to find a subject first.
Enter the dynamic, former pro ball player, Jackie Brandt, about 10 years ago.
Boog Powell, a former Baltimore Oriole, was one of Tyler's clients. Powell owns Boog’s BBQ, a concession stand at Oriole Park at Camden Yards and at Sarasota’s Ed Smith Stadium.
Powell, who is now 83, introduced Tyler to Brandt, who played for the Orioles and four other Major League Baseball teams, at Camden Yards. Tyler listened as Powell and Brandt swapped stories.
Brandt invited Tyler to sit with him next to the dugout while Powell headed to the skybox to sign autographs.
What followed were wild stories of Brandt's baseball life from 1956 to 1967.
One involved Brandt and other players climbing into a hotel window in Washington, D.C. after they were out drinking and had missed their curfew.
While Tyler didn't hear enough that would make only Brandt's stories good enough for an entire book, he did think about interviewing more ballplayers and eventually retelling their wild stories.
While Tyler never did follow the impulse to write that particular book, the exchange gave him the urge to write some kind of novel. What followed was "Hunting the Red Fox."
“When I start at the top of the page, I have no idea what’s going to be at the bottom,” Tyler said of his ideas.
After leaving Camden Yards that day a decade ago, Tyler decided he would take his son Billy on a roadtrip through the Midwest to watch baseball games with retired players and document their stories the following summer. Then, he said "life happened," and Billy Tyler wanted to play travel lacrosse that summer so the roadtrip never happened.
Still, Tyler wondered whether interviewing people in general would lead to enough interesting stories to craft his novel around. He thought an average Joe could have extraordinary stories to tell, too. He began interviewing strangers.
After listening to a plethora of stories, he said none were noteworthy enough to carry a chapter, let alone a book. He became somewhat dejected.
“It sounded like a good idea, but it wasn’t,” he said.
What it did was make him realize he didn’t need anyone else’s stories.
With no idea or instructions on how to write a book, Tyler started with one line: “The last jewel heist of my career was the biggest and best by far — the Mecklenburg Diamond.”
From there, his imagination led main character Perry Barnes to war, Hollywood, Jackie Gleason’s Long Island home and the PGA tour.
Tyler's accounting career had led him to Powell, Brandt and baseball, but his passion was always golf. The sport is one of the main reasons Tyler and his wife Barbara moved from Ocean City, Maryland to Lakewood Ranch.
His original idea of picking up stories through interviews wasn’t lost in the transition. It simply transformed. The idea spurred by Brandt's storytelling is written from the first page when the character Roger Mace is introduced.
Mace is working on a book project and interviewing Barnes for the first time. The idea morphed into the literary device Tyler used to have Barnes share his stories.
Mace was Tyler’s mother’s maiden name. The inspiration for Barnes’ first name came from Perry Mason.
“I learned a lot from Perry Mason about how to interact with the IRS,” Tyler said. “That’s true.”
