There are several things that are just understood in baseball. All players get involved in a brawl. All hitters will go through a slump at some time. And, probably the most understood, all pitchers are strange.

Because of their very strangeness, pitchers certainly have interesting stories to tell. They are equal to the quarterback on a football team. They handle the ball on every play and have the attention of everyone watching.

Seth Swirsky’s ongoing love of baseball led him to dive deeper into the game’s rich history after writing Baseball Letters: A Fan’s Correspondence with His Heroes. For Every Pitcher Tells a Story, Swirsky wrote to nearly 300 pitchers, including some heavy hitters, receiving about 200 replies that demonstrate the degree to which ballplayers have long seen themselves as the custodians of baseball’s history. The result is a book with actual letters from players in their own handwriting, along with vivid photos of the players themselves.

The book begins with a letter from Montreal Expos pitcher Carl Pavano. His name may not ring a bell until you remember that he was the one that gave up home run number 70 to Mark McGwire in 1998. Here’s a sample of what appears in his letter: I said to myself all along if I get a chance to pitch against McGwire, I will not walk him. I will challenge and beat him! . . . First pitch, CRACK-GONE, #70. And the rest is history. As Swirsky states, This book does not require you to have a great knowledge of the game of baseball. It does ask you, however, to use your imagination to transport yourself to the moment that each player wrote about. Some letters are long, some are short. Each, with the help of imagination, tells a story. Some of the better-known pitchers included are Cy Young, Steve Carlton, Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez, David Cone, Tom Glavine, and Kerry Wood. In addition, some great sluggers like Reggie Jackson and Jeff Bagwell add their observations about pitchers they’ve faced.

Every Pitcher Tells a Story is so comprehensive it even includes an appearance from that lovable loser, Charlie Brown. Who knew that he would get nervous pitching in front of his lifelong crush, the little red-haired girl ? Scott Grissom is still waiting to order his Chicago Cubs World Series tickets.

Out of the ballpark: bats and stats Perhaps no baseball season has been as closely monitored and analyzed as 1998. Balls were rocketing out of the parks at an amazing rate, and the Yankees were leaving the competition in the dust. There were formidable pitching performances and the usual smattering of high-profile players changing addresses. Cal Ripken ended his streak, and the Florida Marlins ended their short-lived chance at dominance.

These are some of the subjects captured in the new roster of baseball books.

In his excellent Summer of ’98: When Homers Fell, Records Flew and Baseball Reclaimed America (Putnam, $23.95, 0399145141), esteemed sports columnist Mike Lupica eloquently reminds us what last season meant, not just to a nation of fans, but to a nation. The sensational race for the home run crown between the Cardinals’ Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, of the perennial rival Chicago Cubs (as Lupica says, you can’t make this stuff up), deservedly takes center stage here, but he reminds us of the other highlights and personalities that helped make the Summer of ’98 so special. To a large extent, the book also revolves around the relationship with his sons as they have come to the age when baseball takes its unrelenting grip on them. The fact that Lupica’s enthusiasm is so unguarded just makes the reading more enjoyable.

No sooner had the dust settled from McGwire v. Sosa than the publishers got busy. Perhaps the best of the lot on the subject is Celebrating 70: Mark McGwire’s Historic Season ($29.95, 089204621X), a joint effort by the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Sporting News. This painstaking chronicle captures all the drama and excitement of each homer with photos, quotes, and historical context. Surely Big Mac can now be considered among the all-time greats.

In fact, he’s already included in the next selections, not one but two new books which designate the top hundred players in the history of the game. It’s a David and Goliath author’s competition between the Bible of Baseball and a professor of philosophy.

The Sporting News Selects Baseball’s Greatest Players: A Celebration of the 20th Century’s Best by Ron Smith (The Sporting News, $29.95, 0892046082) has tradition going for it, calling on its vast archives for photos and narrative. Baseball’s Greatest Players does an even-handed job incorporating players from the Negro Leagues but exhibits some bias in picking players primarily from the pre-expansion era (prior to the 1960s).

On the other hand, Ken Shouler’s The Real 100 Best Baseball Players of All Time . . . and Why! (Addax Publishing Group, $22.95, 1886110468) claims to be devoid of sentiment, relying solely on the numbers as qualifications for membership into such an elite group. While Shouler excludes members of the Negro Leagues, he does include more players from the ’60s and later, perhaps to attract a younger readership. Sure, there are differences of opinions between the two books, and you might question the methodology used in the selection process, but part of the fun of being a fan derives from the kind of arguments that these volumes will undoubtedly generate.

The Autobiography of Baseball by Joseph Wallace (Abrams, $35, 0810919257) is a different sort of best book and takes the concept of oral history to a new level. Previously all the players in such books would share a common bond, like a team or a time frame. But Wallace wonders how it might be to sit down old-timers with contemporary players for a discussion of their craft. Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds . . . Bob Feller and Greg Maddux . . . brothers of the diamond shooting the breeze. Using excerpts from old interviews, Wallace seamlessly blends the generations as they regale us in tales about the pressures a rookie faces, the joy of the cheers, and the heartbreak of realizing it’s time to hang ’em up. The choice of illustrations works extremely well in enhancing the stories.

The game’s visual beauty is also well represented in coffee-table books by two of the most recognizable sports photojournalists. Mickey Mantle, the Yankee Years: The Photographs of Ozzie Sweet (Tuff Stuff Books, $39.95, 0930625218) is an ode to the baseball hero of the boomer generation. The cameraman’s distinctive style, shooting at an upward angle against a solid background, emphasizes the slugger’s mythic strength and grace. Sweet’s yarns about the photo sessions offer a candid look at Mantle and his teammates.

Reflections of the Game Lives in Baseball: The Photographs of Ronald C. Modra (Willow Creek Press, $29.50, 1572231807) represents some of the best of this veteran lensman. The anecdotal reflections come from the artist and his subjects. Pat Jordan, ballplayer-cum-writer, provides a running essay on how he was instilled with a love for the game, from his days as a little leaguer through his abbreviated professional career.

For those of us who can never get enough of a good thing, there’s a new heavyweight (literally) for the reference section. It’s the All-Time Baseball Sourcebook. What sets this massive volume (over 2,600 pages) apart from other such tomes is the breadth and breakdown of data previously unavailable to the average fan. Rather than listing the individual records of every player, which can be found elsewhere, the Sourcebook offers batting and pitching averages listed by decade, age, and time-span (as in best five-year stretch, seven-year, etc.), just to mention a few of the many sections. There is also an extensive franchise section where you can find out all manner of statistical information about your favorite team, along with almanac-like capsules presenting interesting factoids.

The Sourcebook also contains box scores from every All-Star and post-season game, along with summaries and registers of all the participants. The editors also give you their takes on 90 of the greatest games ever played and a fresh look at the history of baseball’s amateur draft.

Well, I don’t know about you, but all this baseball talk has made me hungry. Let’s see what’s in the Home Plate Cookbook: Recipes from Baseball Greats Just Great for Your Home Plate by Gary Saunders (Crane Hill Publishers, $14.95, 157587072X), a collection of recipes from players and others connected with the game. Hmmm, there’s Bob Feller’s fruitcake, Mickey Mantle’s Yankee Garlic Bread, and Willie Mays’s Say Hey Bran Muffins, among dozens of other delectables. There are also food-facts about the links and lore of ball park food. But be warned: Most of the dishes are definitely not politically correct in this era of healthy eating. Still, this fun book provides a heaping helping of lighthearted glimpses into the players which we seldom see.

Ron Kaplan is currently working on a book about baseball during the Korean War years.

Out of the ballpark: bats and stats Perhaps no baseball season has been as closely monitored and analyzed as 1998. Balls were rocketing out of the parks at an amazing rate, and the Yankees were leaving the competition in the dust. There were formidable pitching performances and the usual smattering of high-profile players changing addresses. Cal Ripken ended his streak, and the Florida Marlins ended their short-lived chance at dominance.

These are some of the subjects captured in the new roster of baseball books.

In his excellent Summer of ’98: When Homers Fell, Records Flew and Baseball Reclaimed America (Putnam, $23.95, 0399145141), esteemed sports columnist Mike Lupica eloquently reminds us what last season meant, not just to a nation of fans, but to a nation. The sensational race for the home run crown between the Cardinals’ Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, of the perennial rival Chicago Cubs (as Lupica says, you can’t make this stuff up), deservedly takes center stage here, but he reminds us of the other highlights and personalities that helped make the Summer of ’98 so special. To a large extent, the book also revolves around the relationship with his sons as they have come to the age when baseball takes its unrelenting grip on them. The fact that Lupica’s enthusiasm is so unguarded just makes the reading more enjoyable.

No sooner had the dust settled from McGwire v. Sosa than the publishers got busy. Perhaps the best of the lot on the subject is Celebrating 70: Mark McGwire’s Historic Season ($29.95, 089204621X), a joint effort by the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Sporting News. This painstaking chronicle captures all the drama and excitement of each homer with photos, quotes, and historical context. Surely Big Mac can now be considered among the all-time greats.

In fact, he’s already included in the next selections, not one but two new books which designate the top hundred players in the history of the game. It’s a David and Goliath author’s competition between the Bible of Baseball and a professor of philosophy.

The Sporting News Selects Baseball’s Greatest Players: A Celebration of the 20th Century’s Best by Ron Smith (The Sporting News, $29.95, 0892046082) has tradition going for it, calling on its vast archives for photos and narrative. Baseball’s Greatest Players does an even-handed job incorporating players from the Negro Leagues but exhibits some bias in picking players primarily from the pre-expansion era (prior to the 1960s).

On the other hand, Ken Shouler’s The Real 100 Best Baseball Players of All Time . . . and Why! (Addax Publishing Group, $22.95, 1886110468) claims to be devoid of sentiment, relying solely on the numbers as qualifications for membership into such an elite group. While Shouler excludes members of the Negro Leagues, he does include more players from the ’60s and later, perhaps to attract a younger readership. Sure, there are differences of opinions between the two books, and you might question the methodology used in the selection process, but part of the fun of being a fan derives from the kind of arguments that these volumes will undoubtedly generate.

The Autobiography of Baseball by Joseph Wallace (Abrams, $35, 0810919257) is a different sort of best book and takes the concept of oral history to a new level. Previously all the players in such books would share a common bond, like a team or a time frame. But Wallace wonders how it might be to sit down old-timers with contemporary players for a discussion of their craft. Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds . . . Bob Feller and Greg Maddux . . . brothers of the diamond shooting the breeze. Using excerpts from old interviews, Wallace seamlessly blends the generations as they regale us in tales about the pressures a rookie faces, the joy of the cheers, and the heartbreak of realizing it’s time to hang ’em up. The choice of illustrations works extremely well in enhancing the stories.

The game’s visual beauty is also well represented in coffee-table books by two of the most recognizable sports photojournalists. Mickey Mantle, the Yankee Years: The Photographs of Ozzie Sweet (Tuff Stuff Books, $39.95, 0930625218) is an ode to the baseball hero of the boomer generation. The cameraman’s distinctive style, shooting at an upward angle against a solid background, emphasizes the slugger’s mythic strength and grace. Sweet’s yarns about the photo sessions offer a candid look at Mantle and his teammates.

Reflections of the Game Lives in Baseball: The Photographs of Ronald C. Modra represents some of the best of this veteran lensman. The anecdotal reflections come from the artist and his subjects. Pat Jordan, ballplayer-cum-writer, provides a running essay on how he was instilled with a love for the game, from his days as a little leaguer through his abbreviated professional career.

For those of us who can never get enough of a good thing, there’s a new heavyweight (literally) for the reference section. It’s the All-Time Baseball Sourcebook (STATS, Inc., $79.95, 1884064531). What sets this massive volume (over 2,600 pages) apart from other such tomes is the breadth and breakdown of data previously unavailable to the average fan. Rather than listing the individual records of every player, which can be found elsewhere, the Sourcebook offers batting and pitching averages listed by decade, age, and time-span (as in best five-year stretch, seven-year, etc.), just to mention a few of the many sections. There is also an extensive franchise section where you can find out all manner of statistical information about your favorite team, along with almanac-like capsules presenting interesting factoids.

The Sourcebook also contains box scores from every All-Star and post-season game, along with summaries and registers of all the participants. The editors also give you their takes on 90 of the greatest games ever played and a fresh look at the history of baseball’s amateur draft.

Well, I don’t know about you, but all this baseball talk has made me hungry. Let’s see what’s in the Home Plate Cookbook: Recipes from Baseball Greats Just Great for Your Home Plate by Gary Saunders (Crane Hill Publishers, $14.95, 157587072X), a collection of recipes from players and others connected with the game. Hmmm, there’s Bob Feller’s fruitcake, Mickey Mantle’s Yankee Garlic Bread, and Willie Mays’s Say Hey Bran Muffins, among dozens of other delectables. There are also food-facts about the links and lore of ball park food. But be warned: Most of the dishes are definitely not politically correct in this era of healthy eating. Still, this fun book provides a heaping helping of lighthearted glimpses into the players which we seldom see.

Ron Kaplan is currently working on a book about baseball during the Korean War years.

Out of the ballpark: bats and stats Perhaps no baseball season has been as closely monitored and analyzed as 1998. Balls were rocketing out of the parks at an amazing rate, and the Yankees were leaving the competition in the dust. There were formidable pitching performances and the usual smattering of high-profile players changing addresses. Cal Ripken ended his streak, and the Florida Marlins ended their short-lived chance at dominance.

These are some of the subjects captured in the new roster of baseball books.

In his excellent Summer of ’98: When Homers Fell, Records Flew and Baseball Reclaimed America (Putnam, $23.95, 0399145141), esteemed sports columnist Mike Lupica eloquently reminds us what last season meant, not just to a nation of fans, but to a nation. The sensational race for the home run crown between the Cardinals’ Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, of the perennial rival Chicago Cubs (as Lupica says, you can’t make this stuff up), deservedly takes center stage here, but he reminds us of the other highlights and personalities that helped make the Summer of ’98 so special. To a large extent, the book also revolves around the relationship with his sons as they have come to the age when baseball takes its unrelenting grip on them. The fact that Lupica’s enthusiasm is so unguarded just makes the reading more enjoyable.

No sooner had the dust settled from McGwire v. Sosa than the publishers got busy. Perhaps the best of the lot on the subject is Celebrating 70: Mark McGwire’s Historic Season ($29.95, 089204621X), a joint effort by the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Sporting News. This painstaking chronicle captures all the drama and excitement of each homer with photos, quotes, and historical context. Surely Big Mac can now be considered among the all-time greats.

In fact, he’s already included in the next selections, not one but two new books which designate the top hundred players in the history of the game. It’s a David and Goliath author’s competition between the Bible of Baseball and a professor of philosophy.

The Sporting News Selects Baseball’s Greatest Players: A Celebration of the 20th Century’s Best by Ron Smith (The Sporting News, $29.95, 0892046082) has tradition going for it, calling on its vast archives for photos and narrative. Baseball’s Greatest Players does an even-handed job incorporating players from the Negro Leagues but exhibits some bias in picking players primarily from the pre-expansion era (prior to the 1960s).

On the other hand, Ken Shouler’s The Real 100 Best Baseball Players of All Time . . . and Why! (Addax Publishing Group, $22.95, 1886110468) claims to be devoid of sentiment, relying solely on the numbers as qualifications for membership into such an elite group. While Shouler excludes members of the Negro Leagues, he does include more players from the ’60s and later, perhaps to attract a younger readership. Sure, there are differences of opinions between the two books, and you might question the methodology used in the selection process, but part of the fun of being a fan derives from the kind of arguments that these volumes will undoubtedly generate.

The Autobiography of Baseball by Joseph Wallace (Abrams, $35, 0810919257) is a different sort of best book and takes the concept of oral history to a new level. Previously all the players in such books would share a common bond, like a team or a time frame. But Wallace wonders how it might be to sit down old-timers with contemporary players for a discussion of their craft. Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds . . . Bob Feller and Greg Maddux . . . brothers of the diamond shooting the breeze. Using excerpts from old interviews, Wallace seamlessly blends the generations as they regale us in tales about the pressures a rookie faces, the joy of the cheers, and the heartbreak of realizing it’s time to hang ’em up. The choice of illustrations works extremely well in enhancing the stories.

The game’s visual beauty is also well represented in coffee-table books by two of the most recognizable sports photojournalists. Mickey Mantle, the Yankee Years: The Photographs of Ozzie Sweet is an ode to the baseball hero of the boomer generation. The cameraman’s distinctive style, shooting at an upward angle against a solid background, emphasizes the slugger’s mythic strength and grace. Sweet’s yarns about the photo sessions offer a candid look at Mantle and his teammates.

Reflections of the Game Lives in Baseball: The Photographs of Ronald C. Modra (Willow Creek Press, $29.50, 1572231807) represents some of the best of this veteran lensman. The anecdotal reflections come from the artist and his subjects. Pat Jordan, ballplayer-cum-writer, provides a running essay on how he was instilled with a love for the game, from his days as a little leaguer through his abbreviated professional career.

For those of us who can never get enough of a good thing, there’s a new heavyweight (literally) for the reference section. It’s the All-Time Baseball Sourcebook (STATS, Inc., $79.95, 1884064531). What sets this massive volume (over 2,600 pages) apart from other such tomes is the breadth and breakdown of data previously unavailable to the average fan. Rather than listing the individual records of every player, which can be found elsewhere, the Sourcebook offers batting and pitching averages listed by decade, age, and time-span (as in best five-year stretch, seven-year, etc.), just to mention a few of the many sections. There is also an extensive franchise section where you can find out all manner of statistical information about your favorite team, along with almanac-like capsules presenting interesting factoids.

The Sourcebook also contains box scores from every All-Star and post-season game, along with summaries and registers of all the participants. The editors also give you their takes on 90 of the greatest games ever played and a fresh look at the history of baseball’s amateur draft.

Well, I don’t know about you, but all this baseball talk has made me hungry. Let’s see what’s in the Home Plate Cookbook: Recipes from Baseball Greats Just Great for Your Home Plate by Gary Saunders (Crane Hill Publishers, $14.95, 157587072X), a collection of recipes from players and others connected with the game. Hmmm, there’s Bob Feller’s fruitcake, Mickey Mantle’s Yankee Garlic Bread, and Willie Mays’s Say Hey Bran Muffins, among dozens of other delectables. There are also food-facts about the links and lore of ball park food. But be warned: Most of the dishes are definitely not politically correct in this era of healthy eating. Still, this fun book provides a heaping helping of lighthearted glimpses into the players which we seldom see.

Ron Kaplan is currently working on a book about baseball during the Korean War years.

Out of the ballpark: bats and stats Perhaps no baseball season has been as closely monitored and analyzed as 1998. Balls were rocketing out of the parks at an amazing rate, and the Yankees were leaving the competition in the dust. There were formidable pitching performances and the usual smattering of high-profile players changing addresses. Cal Ripken ended his streak, and the Florida Marlins ended their short-lived chance at dominance.

These are some of the subjects captured in the new roster of baseball books.

In his excellent Summer of ’98: When Homers Fell, Records Flew and Baseball Reclaimed America (Putnam, $23.95, 0399145141), esteemed sports columnist Mike Lupica eloquently reminds us what last season meant, not just to a nation of fans, but to a nation. The sensational race for the home run crown between the Cardinals’ Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, of the perennial rival Chicago Cubs (as Lupica says, you can’t make this stuff up), deservedly takes center stage here, but he reminds us of the other highlights and personalities that helped make the Summer of ’98 so special. To a large extent, the book also revolves around the relationship with his sons as they have come to the age when baseball takes its unrelenting grip on them. The fact that Lupica’s enthusiasm is so unguarded just makes the reading more enjoyable.

No sooner had the dust settled from McGwire v. Sosa than the publishers got busy. Perhaps the best of the lot on the subject is Celebrating 70: Mark McGwire’s Historic Season ($29.95, 089204621X), a joint effort by the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Sporting News. This painstaking chronicle captures all the drama and excitement of each homer with photos, quotes, and historical context. Surely Big Mac can now be considered among the all-time greats.

In fact, he’s already included in the next selections, not one but two new books which designate the top hundred players in the history of the game. It’s a David and Goliath author’s competition between the Bible of Baseball and a professor of philosophy.

The Sporting News Selects Baseball’s Greatest Players: A Celebration of the 20th Century’s Best by Ron Smith (The Sporting News, $29.95, 0892046082) has tradition going for it, calling on its vast archives for photos and narrative. Baseball’s Greatest Players does an even-handed job incorporating players from the Negro Leagues but exhibits some bias in picking players primarily from the pre-expansion era (prior to the 1960s).

On the other hand, Ken Shouler’s The Real 100 Best Baseball Players of All Time . . . and Why! (Addax Publishing Group, $22.95, 1886110468) claims to be devoid of sentiment, relying solely on the numbers as qualifications for membership into such an elite group. While Shouler excludes members of the Negro Leagues, he does include more players from the ’60s and later, perhaps to attract a younger readership. Sure, there are differences of opinions between the two books, and you might question the methodology used in the selection process, but part of the fun of being a fan derives from the kind of arguments that these volumes will undoubtedly generate.

The Autobiography of Baseball by Joseph Wallace is a different sort of best book and takes the concept of oral history to a new level. Previously all the players in such books would share a common bond, like a team or a time frame. But Wallace wonders how it might be to sit down old-timers with contemporary players for a discussion of their craft. Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds . . . Bob Feller and Greg Maddux . . . brothers of the diamond shooting the breeze. Using excerpts from old interviews, Wallace seamlessly blends the generations as they regale us in tales about the pressures a rookie faces, the joy of the cheers, and the heartbreak of realizing it’s time to hang ’em up. The choice of illustrations works extremely well in enhancing the stories.

The game’s visual beauty is also well represented in coffee-table books by two of the most recognizable sports photojournalists. Mickey Mantle, the Yankee Years: The Photographs of Ozzie Sweet (Tuff Stuff Books, $39.95, 0930625218) is an ode to the baseball hero of the boomer generation. The cameraman’s distinctive style, shooting at an upward angle against a solid background, emphasizes the slugger’s mythic strength and grace. Sweet’s yarns about the photo sessions offer a candid look at Mantle and his teammates.

Reflections of the Game Lives in Baseball: The Photographs of Ronald C. Modra (Willow Creek Press, $29.50, 1572231807) represents some of the best of this veteran lensman. The anecdotal reflections come from the artist and his subjects. Pat Jordan, ballplayer-cum-writer, provides a running essay on how he was instilled with a love for the game, from his days as a little leaguer through his abbreviated professional career.

For those of us who can never get enough of a good thing, there’s a new heavyweight (literally) for the reference section. It’s the All-Time Baseball Sourcebook (STATS, Inc., $79.95, 1884064531). What sets this massive volume (over 2,600 pages) apart from other such tomes is the breadth and breakdown of data previously unavailable to the average fan. Rather than listing the individual records of every player, which can be found elsewhere, the Sourcebook offers batting and pitching averages listed by decade, age, and time-span (as in best five-year stretch, seven-year, etc.), just to mention a few of the many sections. There is also an extensive franchise section where you can find out all manner of statistical information about your favorite team, along with almanac-like capsules presenting interesting factoids.

The Sourcebook also contains box scores from every All-Star and post-season game, along with summaries and registers of all the participants. The editors also give you their takes on 90 of the greatest games ever played and a fresh look at the history of baseball’s amateur draft.

Well, I don’t know about you, but all this baseball talk has made me hungry. Let’s see what’s in the Home Plate Cookbook: Recipes from Baseball Greats Just Great for Your Home Plate by Gary Saunders (Crane Hill Publishers, $14.95, 157587072X), a collection of recipes from players and others connected with the game. Hmmm, there’s Bob Feller’s fruitcake, Mickey Mantle’s Yankee Garlic Bread, and Willie Mays’s Say Hey Bran Muffins, among dozens of other delectables. There are also food-facts about the links and lore of ball park food. But be warned: Most of the dishes are definitely not politically correct in this era of healthy eating. Still, this fun book provides a heaping helping of lighthearted glimpses into the players which we seldom see.

Ron Kaplan is currently working on a book about baseball during the Korean War years.

Out of the ballpark: bats and stats Perhaps no baseball season has been as closely monitored and analyzed as 1998. Balls were rocketing out of the parks at an amazing rate, and the Yankees were leaving the competition in the dust. There were formidable pitching performances and the usual smattering of high-profile players changing addresses. Cal Ripken ended his streak, and the Florida Marlins ended their short-lived chance at dominance.

These are some of the subjects captured in the new roster of baseball books.

In his excellent Summer of ’98: When Homers Fell, Records Flew and Baseball Reclaimed America (Putnam, $23.95, 0399145141), esteemed sports columnist Mike Lupica eloquently reminds us what last season meant, not just to a nation of fans, but to a nation. The sensational race for the home run crown between the Cardinals’ Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, of the perennial rival Chicago Cubs (as Lupica says, you can’t make this stuff up), deservedly takes center stage here, but he reminds us of the other highlights and personalities that helped make the Summer of ’98 so special. To a large extent, the book also revolves around the relationship with his sons as they have come to the age when baseball takes its unrelenting grip on them. The fact that Lupica’s enthusiasm is so unguarded just makes the reading more enjoyable.

No sooner had the dust settled from McGwire v. Sosa than the publishers got busy. Perhaps the best of the lot on the subject is Celebrating 70: Mark McGwire’s Historic Season ($29.95, 089204621X), a joint effort by the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Sporting News. This painstaking chronicle captures all the drama and excitement of each homer with photos, quotes, and historical context. Surely Big Mac can now be considered among the all-time greats.

In fact, he’s already included in the next selections, not one but two new books which designate the top hundred players in the history of the game. It’s a David and Goliath author’s competition between the Bible of Baseball and a professor of philosophy.

The Sporting News Selects Baseball’s Greatest Players: A Celebration of the 20th Century’s Best by Ron Smith (The Sporting News, $29.95, 0892046082) has tradition going for it, calling on its vast archives for photos and narrative. Baseball’s Greatest Players does an even-handed job incorporating players from the Negro Leagues but exhibits some bias in picking players primarily from the pre-expansion era (prior to the 1960s).

On the other hand, Ken Shouler’s The Real 100 Best Baseball Players of All Time . . . and Why! claims to be devoid of sentiment, relying solely on the numbers as qualifications for membership into such an elite group. While Shouler excludes members of the Negro Leagues, he does include more players from the ’60s and later, perhaps to attract a younger readership. Sure, there are differences of opinions between the two books, and you might question the methodology used in the selection process, but part of the fun of being a fan derives from the kind of arguments that these volumes will undoubtedly generate.

The Autobiography of Baseball by Joseph Wallace (Abrams, $35, 0810919257) is a different sort of best book and takes the concept of oral history to a new level. Previously all the players in such books would share a common bond, like a team or a time frame. But Wallace wonders how it might be to sit down old-timers with contemporary players for a discussion of their craft. Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds . . . Bob Feller and Greg Maddux . . . brothers of the diamond shooting the breeze. Using excerpts from old interviews, Wallace seamlessly blends the generations as they regale us in tales about the pressures a rookie faces, the joy of the cheers, and the heartbreak of realizing it’s time to hang ’em up. The choice of illustrations works extremely well in enhancing the stories.

The game’s visual beauty is also well represented in coffee-table books by two of the most recognizable sports photojournalists. Mickey Mantle, the Yankee Years: The Photographs of Ozzie Sweet (Tuff Stuff Books, $39.95, 0930625218) is an ode to the baseball hero of the boomer generation. The cameraman’s distinctive style, shooting at an upward angle against a solid background, emphasizes the slugger’s mythic strength and grace. Sweet’s yarns about the photo sessions offer a candid look at Mantle and his teammates.

Reflections of the Game Lives in Baseball: The Photographs of Ronald C. Modra (Willow Creek Press, $29.50, 1572231807) represents some of the best of this veteran lensman. The anecdotal reflections come from the artist and his subjects. Pat Jordan, ballplayer-cum-writer, provides a running essay on how he was instilled with a love for the game, from his days as a little leaguer through his abbreviated professional career.

For those of us who can never get enough of a good thing, there’s a new heavyweight (literally) for the reference section. It’s the All-Time Baseball Sourcebook (STATS, Inc., $79.95, 1884064531). What sets this massive volume (over 2,600 pages) apart from other such tomes is the breadth and breakdown of data previously unavailable to the average fan. Rather than listing the individual records of every player, which can be found elsewhere, the Sourcebook offers batting and pitching averages listed by decade, age, and time-span (as in best five-year stretch, seven-year, etc.), just to mention a few of the many sections. There is also an extensive franchise section where you can find out all manner of statistical information about your favorite team, along with almanac-like capsules presenting interesting factoids.

The Sourcebook also contains box scores from every All-Star and post-season game, along with summaries and registers of all the participants. The editors also give you their takes on 90 of the greatest games ever played and a fresh look at the history of baseball’s amateur draft.

Well, I don’t know about you, but all this baseball talk has made me hungry. Let’s see what’s in the Home Plate Cookbook: Recipes from Baseball Greats Just Great for Your Home Plate by Gary Saunders (Crane Hill Publishers, $14.95, 157587072X), a collection of recipes from players and others connected with the game. Hmmm, there’s Bob Feller’s fruitcake, Mickey Mantle’s Yankee Garlic Bread, and Willie Mays’s Say Hey Bran Muffins, among dozens of other delectables. There are also food-facts about the links and lore of ball park food. But be warned: Most of the dishes are definitely not politically correct in this era of healthy eating. Still, this fun book provides a heaping helping of lighthearted glimpses into the players which we seldom see.

Ron Kaplan is currently working on a book about baseball during the Korean War years.

Out of the ballpark: bats and stats Perhaps no baseball season has been as closely monitored and analyzed as 1998. Balls were rocketing out of the parks at an amazing rate, and the Yankees were leaving the competition in the dust. There were formidable pitching performances and the usual smattering of high-profile players changing addresses. Cal Ripken ended his streak, and the Florida Marlins ended their short-lived chance at dominance.

These are some of the subjects captured in the new roster of baseball books.

In his excellent Summer of ’98: When Homers Fell, Records Flew and Baseball Reclaimed America (Putnam, $23.95, 0399145141), esteemed sports columnist Mike Lupica eloquently reminds us what last season meant, not just to a nation of fans, but to a nation. The sensational race for the home run crown between the Cardinals’ Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, of the perennial rival Chicago Cubs (as Lupica says, you can’t make this stuff up), deservedly takes center stage here, but he reminds us of the other highlights and personalities that helped make the Summer of ’98 so special. To a large extent, the book also revolves around the relationship with his sons as they have come to the age when baseball takes its unrelenting grip on them. The fact that Lupica’s enthusiasm is so unguarded just makes the reading more enjoyable.

No sooner had the dust settled from McGwire v. Sosa than the publishers got busy. Perhaps the best of the lot on the subject is Celebrating 70: Mark McGwire’s Historic Season ($29.95, 089204621X), a joint effort by the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Sporting News. This painstaking chronicle captures all the drama and excitement of each homer with photos, quotes, and historical context. Surely Big Mac can now be considered among the all-time greats.

In fact, he’s already included in the next selections, not one but two new books which designate the top hundred players in the history of the game. It’s a David and Goliath author’s competition between the Bible of Baseball and a professor of philosophy.

The Sporting News Selects Baseball’s Greatest Players: A Celebration of the 20th Century’s Best by Ron Smith has tradition going for it, calling on its vast archives for photos and narrative. Baseball’s Greatest Players does an even-handed job incorporating players from the Negro Leagues but exhibits some bias in picking players primarily from the pre-expansion era (prior to the 1960s).

On the other hand, Ken Shouler’s The Real 100 Best Baseball Players of All Time . . . and Why! (Addax Publishing Group, $22.95, 1886110468) claims to be devoid of sentiment, relying solely on the numbers as qualifications for membership into such an elite group. While Shouler excludes members of the Negro Leagues, he does include more players from the ’60s and later, perhaps to attract a younger readership. Sure, there are differences of opinions between the two books, and you might question the methodology used in the selection process, but part of the fun of being a fan derives from the kind of arguments that these volumes will undoubtedly generate.

The Autobiography of Baseball by Joseph Wallace (Abrams, $35, 0810919257) is a different sort of best book and takes the concept of oral history to a new level. Previously all the players in such books would share a common bond, like a team or a time frame. But Wallace wonders how it might be to sit down old-timers with contemporary players for a discussion of their craft. Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds . . . Bob Feller and Greg Maddux . . . brothers of the diamond shooting the breeze. Using excerpts from old interviews, Wallace seamlessly blends the generations as they regale us in tales about the pressures a rookie faces, the joy of the cheers, and the heartbreak of realizing it’s time to hang ’em up. The choice of illustrations works extremely well in enhancing the stories.

The game’s visual beauty is also well represented in coffee-table books by two of the most recognizable sports photojournalists. Mickey Mantle, the Yankee Years: The Photographs of Ozzie Sweet (Tuff Stuff Books, $39.95, 0930625218) is an ode to the baseball hero of the boomer generation. The cameraman’s distinctive style, shooting at an upward angle against a solid background, emphasizes the slugger’s mythic strength and grace. Sweet’s yarns about the photo sessions offer a candid look at Mantle and his teammates.

Reflections of the Game Lives in Baseball: The Photographs of Ronald C. Modra (Willow Creek Press, $29.50, 1572231807) represents some of the best of this veteran lensman. The anecdotal reflections come from the artist and his subjects. Pat Jordan, ballplayer-cum-writer, provides a running essay on how he was instilled with a love for the game, from his days as a little leaguer through his abbreviated professional career.

For those of us who can never get enough of a good thing, there’s a new heavyweight (literally) for the reference section. It’s the All-Time Baseball Sourcebook (STATS, Inc., $79.95, 1884064531). What sets this massive volume (over 2,600 pages) apart from other such tomes is the breadth and breakdown of data previously unavailable to the average fan. Rather than listing the individual records of every player, which can be found elsewhere, the Sourcebook offers batting and pitching averages listed by decade, age, and time-span (as in best five-year stretch, seven-year, etc.), just to mention a few of the many sections. There is also an extensive franchise section where you can find out all manner of statistical information about your favorite team, along with almanac-like capsules presenting interesting factoids.

The Sourcebook also contains box scores from every All-Star and post-season game, along with summaries and registers of all the participants. The editors also give you their takes on 90 of the greatest games ever played and a fresh look at the history of baseball’s amateur draft.

Well, I don’t know about you, but all this baseball talk has made me hungry. Let’s see what’s in the Home Plate Cookbook: Recipes from Baseball Greats Just Great for Your Home Plate by Gary Saunders (Crane Hill Publishers, $14.95, 157587072X), a collection of recipes from players and others connected with the game. Hmmm, there’s Bob Feller’s fruitcake, Mickey Mantle’s Yankee Garlic Bread, and Willie Mays’s Say Hey Bran Muffins, among dozens of other delectables. There are also food-facts about the links and lore of ball park food. But be warned: Most of the dishes are definitely not politically correct in this era of healthy eating. Still, this fun book provides a heaping helping of lighthearted glimpses into the players which we seldom see.

Ron Kaplan is currently working on a book about baseball during the Korean War years.

Out of the ballpark: bats and stats Perhaps no baseball season has been as closely monitored and analyzed as 1998. Balls were rocketing out of the parks at an amazing rate, and the Yankees were leaving the competition in the dust. There were formidable pitching performances and the usual smattering of high-profile players changing addresses. Cal Ripken ended his streak, and the Florida Marlins ended their short-lived chance at dominance.

These are some of the subjects captured in the new roster of baseball books.

In his excellent Summer of ’98: When Homers Fell, Records Flew and Baseball Reclaimed America (Putnam, $23.95, 0399145141), esteemed sports columnist Mike Lupica eloquently reminds us what last season meant, not just to a nation of fans, but to a nation. The sensational race for the home run crown between the Cardinals’ Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, of the perennial rival Chicago Cubs (as Lupica says, you can’t make this stuff up), deservedly takes center stage here, but he reminds us of the other highlights and personalities that helped make the Summer of ’98 so special. To a large extent, the book also revolves around the relationship with his sons as they have come to the age when baseball takes its unrelenting grip on them. The fact that Lupica’s enthusiasm is so unguarded just makes the reading more enjoyable.

No sooner had the dust settled from McGwire v. Sosa than the publishers got busy. Perhaps the best of the lot on the subject is Celebrating 70: Mark McGwire’s Historic Season, a joint effort by the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Sporting News. This painstaking chronicle captures all the drama and excitement of each homer with photos, quotes, and historical context. Surely Big Mac can now be considered among the all-time greats.

In fact, he’s already included in the next selections, not one but two new books which designate the top hundred players in the history of the game. It’s a David and Goliath author’s competition between the Bible of Baseball and a professor of philosophy.

The Sporting News Selects Baseball’s Greatest Players: A Celebration of the 20th Century’s Best by Ron Smith (The Sporting News, $29.95, 0892046082) has tradition going for it, calling on its vast archives for photos and narrative. Baseball’s Greatest Players does an even-handed job incorporating players from the Negro Leagues but exhibits some bias in picking players primarily from the pre-expansion era (prior to the 1960s).

On the other hand, Ken Shouler’s The Real 100 Best Baseball Players of All Time . . . and Why! (Addax Publishing Group, $22.95, 1886110468) claims to be devoid of sentiment, relying solely on the numbers as qualifications for membership into such an elite group. While Shouler excludes members of the Negro Leagues, he does include more players from the ’60s and later, perhaps to attract a younger readership. Sure, there are differences of opinions between the two books, and you might question the methodology used in the selection process, but part of the fun of being a fan derives from the kind of arguments that these volumes will undoubtedly generate.

The Autobiography of Baseball by Joseph Wallace (Abrams, $35, 0810919257) is a different sort of best book and takes the concept of oral history to a new level. Previously all the players in such books would share a common bond, like a team or a time frame. But Wallace wonders how it might be to sit down old-timers with contemporary players for a discussion of their craft. Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds . . . Bob Feller and Greg Maddux . . . brothers of the diamond shooting the breeze. Using excerpts from old interviews, Wallace seamlessly blends the generations as they regale us in tales about the pressures a rookie faces, the joy of the cheers, and the heartbreak of realizing it’s time to hang ’em up. The choice of illustrations works extremely well in enhancing the stories.

The game’s visual beauty is also well represented in coffee-table books by two of the most recognizable sports photojournalists. Mickey Mantle, the Yankee Years: The Photographs of Ozzie Sweet (Tuff Stuff Books, $39.95, 0930625218) is an ode to the baseball hero of the boomer generation. The cameraman’s distinctive style, shooting at an upward angle against a solid background, emphasizes the slugger’s mythic strength and grace. Sweet’s yarns about the photo sessions offer a candid look at Mantle and his teammates.

Reflections of the Game Lives in Baseball: The Photographs of Ronald C. Modra (Willow Creek Press, $29.50, 1572231807) represents some of the best of this veteran lensman. The anecdotal reflections come from the artist and his subjects. Pat Jordan, ballplayer-cum-writer, provides a running essay on how he was instilled with a love for the game, from his days as a little leaguer through his abbreviated professional career.

For those of us who can never get enough of a good thing, there’s a new heavyweight (literally) for the reference section. It’s the All-Time Baseball Sourcebook (STATS, Inc., $79.95, 1884064531). What sets this massive volume (over 2,600 pages) apart from other such tomes is the breadth and breakdown of data previously unavailable to the average fan. Rather than listing the individual records of every player, which can be found elsewhere, the Sourcebook offers batting and pitching averages listed by decade, age, and time-span (as in best five-year stretch, seven-year, etc.), just to mention a few of the many sections. There is also an extensive franchise section where you can find out all manner of statistical information about your favorite team, along with almanac-like capsules presenting interesting factoids.

The Sourcebook also contains box scores from every All-Star and post-season game, along with summaries and registers of all the participants. The editors also give you their takes on 90 of the greatest games ever played and a fresh look at the history of baseball’s amateur draft.

Well, I don’t know about you, but all this baseball talk has made me hungry. Let’s see what’s in the Home Plate Cookbook: Recipes from Baseball Greats Just Great for Your Home Plate by Gary Saunders (Crane Hill Publishers, $14.95, 157587072X), a collection of recipes from players and others connected with the game. Hmmm, there’s Bob Feller’s fruitcake, Mickey Mantle’s Yankee Garlic Bread, and Willie Mays’s Say Hey Bran Muffins, among dozens of other delectables. There are also food-facts about the links and lore of ball park food. But be warned: Most of the dishes are definitely not politically correct in this era of healthy eating. Still, this fun book provides a heaping helping of lighthearted glimpses into the players which we seldom see.

Ron Kaplan is currently working on a book about baseball during the Korean War years.

Out of the ballpark: bats and stats Perhaps no baseball season has been as closely monitored and analyzed as 1998. Balls were rocketing out of the parks at an amazing rate, and the Yankees were leaving the competition in the dust. There were formidable pitching performances and the usual smattering of high-profile players changing addresses. Cal Ripken ended his streak, and the Florida Marlins ended their short-lived chance at dominance.

These are some of the subjects captured in the new roster of baseball books.

In his excellent Summer of ’98: When Homers Fell, Records Flew and Baseball Reclaimed America, esteemed sports columnist Mike Lupica eloquently reminds us what last season meant, not just to a nation of fans, but to a nation. The sensational race for the home run crown between the Cardinals’ Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, of the perennial rival Chicago Cubs (as Lupica says, you can’t make this stuff up), deservedly takes center stage here, but he reminds us of the other highlights and personalities that helped make the Summer of ’98 so special. To a large extent, the book also revolves around the relationship with his sons as they have come to the age when baseball takes its unrelenting grip on them. The fact that Lupica’s enthusiasm is so unguarded just makes the reading more enjoyable.

No sooner had the dust settled from McGwire v. Sosa than the publishers got busy. Perhaps the best of the lot on the subject is Celebrating 70: Mark McGwire’s Historic Season ($29.95, 089204621X), a joint effort by the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Sporting News. This painstaking chronicle captures all the drama and excitement of each homer with photos, quotes, and historical context. Surely Big Mac can now be considered among the all-time greats.

In fact, he’s already included in the next selections, not one but two new books which designate the top hundred players in the history of the game. It’s a David and Goliath author’s competition between the Bible of Baseball and a professor of philosophy.

The Sporting News Selects Baseball’s Greatest Players: A Celebration of the 20th Century’s Best by Ron Smith (The Sporting News, $29.95, 0892046082) has tradition going for it, calling on its vast archives for photos and narrative. Baseball’s Greatest Players does an even-handed job incorporating players from the Negro Leagues but exhibits some bias in picking players primarily from the pre-expansion era (prior to the 1960s).

On the other hand, Ken Shouler’s The Real 100 Best Baseball Players of All Time . . . and Why! (Addax Publishing Group, $22.95, 1886110468) claims to be devoid of sentiment, relying solely on the numbers as qualifications for membership into such an elite group. While Shouler excludes members of the Negro Leagues, he does include more players from the ’60s and later, perhaps to attract a younger readership. Sure, there are differences of opinions between the two books, and you might question the methodology used in the selection process, but part of the fun of being a fan derives from the kind of arguments that these volumes will undoubtedly generate.

The Autobiography of Baseball by Joseph Wallace (Abrams, $35, 0810919257) is a different sort of best book and takes the concept of oral history to a new level. Previously all the players in such books would share a common bond, like a team or a time frame. But Wallace wonders how it might be to sit down old-timers with contemporary players for a discussion of their craft. Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds . . . Bob Feller and Greg Maddux . . . brothers of the diamond shooting the breeze. Using excerpts from old interviews, Wallace seamlessly blends the generations as they regale us in tales about the pressures a rookie faces, the joy of the cheers, and the heartbreak of realizing it’s time to hang ’em up. The choice of illustrations works extremely well in enhancing the stories.

The game’s visual beauty is also well represented in coffee-table books by two of the most recognizable sports photojournalists. Mickey Mantle, the Yankee Years: The Photographs of Ozzie Sweet (Tuff Stuff Books, $39.95, 0930625218) is an ode to the baseball hero of the boomer generation. The cameraman’s distinctive style, shooting at an upward angle against a solid background, emphasizes the slugger’s mythic strength and grace. Sweet’s yarns about the photo sessions offer a candid look at Mantle and his teammates.

Reflections of the Game Lives in Baseball: The Photographs of Ronald C. Modra (Willow Creek Press, $29.50, 1572231807) represents some of the best of this veteran lensman. The anecdotal reflections come from the artist and his subjects. Pat Jordan, ballplayer-cum-writer, provides a running essay on how he was instilled with a love for the game, from his days as a little leaguer through his abbreviated professional career.

For those of us who can never get enough of a good thing, there’s a new heavyweight (literally) for the reference section. It’s the All-Time Baseball Sourcebook (STATS, Inc., $79.95, 1884064531). What sets this massive volume (over 2,600 pages) apart from other such tomes is the breadth and breakdown of data previously unavailable to the average fan. Rather than listing the individual records of every player, which can be found elsewhere, the Sourcebook offers batting and pitching averages listed by decade, age, and time-span (as in best five-year stretch, seven-year, etc.), just to mention a few of the many sections. There is also an extensive franchise section where you can find out all manner of statistical information about your favorite team, along with almanac-like capsules presenting interesting factoids.

The Sourcebook also contains box scores from every All-Star and post-season game, along with summaries and registers of all the participants. The editors also give you their takes on 90 of the greatest games ever played and a fresh look at the history of baseball’s amateur draft.

Well, I don’t know about you, but all this baseball talk has made me hungry. Let’s see what’s in the Home Plate Cookbook: Recipes from Baseball Greats Just Great for Your Home Plate by Gary Saunders (Crane Hill Publishers, $14.95, 157587072X), a collection of recipes from players and others connected with the game. Hmmm, there’s Bob Feller’s fruitcake, Mickey Mantle’s Yankee Garlic Bread, and Willie Mays’s Say Hey Bran Muffins, among dozens of other delectables. There are also food-facts about the links and lore of ball park food. But be warned: Most of the dishes are definitely not politically correct in this era of healthy eating. Still, this fun book provides a heaping helping of lighthearted glimpses into the players which we seldom see.

Ron Kaplan is currently working on a book about baseball during the Korean War years.

Get in the swing of it The Masters golf tournament just isn’t fair . . . to its viewers on television. Picture the typical rabid golfer who lives in the Northeast or Midwest. It’s April. He or she has been sitting around all winter, wearing out the living room carpet with putting practice. Then the Masters, the first major golf tournament of the season, appears on television. And everything is perfect. The azaleas are in full bloom, and the world’s best golfers are hitting magnificent drives and sinking eagle putts. No wonder the ratings are always good. Spring doesn’t seem so distant anymore, and anything is possible. This will be the year when you break 80, or 90, or 100. The Masters only lasts for four days in April, but you can take a longer time to read about that competition and the other major tournaments in a pair of new golf books that are just out.

The top release is John Feinstein’s annual literary effort, this time called The Majors (Little, Brown, $25, 0316279714; Time Warner AudioBooks, $17.98, 1570426848). It’s an up-close look at the four major golf championships: the Masters, U.

S. Open, British Open, and PGA Championship. You might remember Feinstein’s book on golf from a couple of years ago, A Good Walk Spoiled. That could have been called A Year in the Life of the PGA Tour. It caught the golf boom at just the right time and was a bestseller. A Good Walk Spoiled was good. The Majors is better. In his books, Feinstein usually introduces his cast of characters and slowly lets them play out the season. No matter how thorough and how good the writing, it’s still tough to get everything in while reviewing an entire year. But four tournaments are a different story. Each event has a small list of contenders, and there’s plenty of time to find out what went right, and wrong. Feinstein does a particularly good job of informing the reader about the pressures involved in trying to win a major. It’s the only time of the year when the golfers are playing for history more than the prizes, and it shows up in a variety of hooks and slices that can make the best professional look like a duffer.

Feinstein had a good run of tournaments in 1998: a Masters triumph on the final hole by Mark O’Meara, who went on to double at the British Open; an exciting comeback by Lee Janzen at the U.

S. Open; and a two-man duel at the PGA that was won by Vijay Singh. There are plenty of fun details along the way. When you finish this book, you’ll take greater enjoyment from watching the major championships in 1999.

For those who want to learn more about the first major championship on the calendar, The Making of the Masters: Clifford Roberts, Augusta National, and Golf’s Most Prestigious Tournament will do the trick. The Masters is a little different from the other majors. It is played on the same course every year, Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, and is not a professional or national championship. The Masters started off as a cozy little event hosted by Bobby Jones, a legendary amateur golfer from the 1920s. Jones was helped by Clifford Roberts, who was head of the club for more than 40 years and was a perfectionist when it came to the course and the tournament.

The author, David Owen, has written the story of how the Masters grew to obtain the status it has today. The research is rather remarkable. Owen had access to Augusta National’s archives, and the detail is reflected throughout the book. If a tree was moved on one of Augusta’s holes, Owen comments on it. If a player from the 1930s complains years later that a late pairing was unfair, Owen pulls out the starting times and shows the player’s complaint is invalid. As a result, The Making of the Masters clears up some misconceptions about the tournament and its founders and offers a favorable but relatively balanced portrait of all concerned.

Budd Bailey is a frequent reviewer of sports books in Buffalo, New York.

Get in the swing of it The Masters golf tournament just isn’t fair . . . to its viewers on television. Picture the typical rabid golfer who lives in the Northeast or Midwest. It’s April. He or she has been sitting around all winter, wearing out the living room carpet with putting practice. Then the Masters, the first major golf tournament of the season, appears on television. And everything is perfect. The azaleas are in full bloom, and the world’s best golfers are hitting magnificent drives and sinking eagle putts. No wonder the ratings are always good. Spring doesn’t seem so distant anymore, and anything is possible. This will be the year when you break 80, or 90, or 100. The Masters only lasts for four days in April, but you can take a longer time to read about that competition and the other major tournaments in a pair of new golf books that are just out.

The top release is John Feinstein’s annual literary effort, this time called The Majors (Time Warner AudioBooks, $17.98, 1570426848). It’s an up-close look at the four major golf championships: the Masters, U.

S. Open, British Open, and PGA Championship. You might remember Feinstein’s book on golf from a couple of years ago, A Good Walk Spoiled. That could have been called A Year in the Life of the PGA Tour. It caught the golf boom at just the right time and was a bestseller. A Good Walk Spoiled was good. The Majors is better. In his books, Feinstein usually introduces his cast of characters and slowly lets them play out the season. No matter how thorough and how good the writing, it’s still tough to get everything in while reviewing an entire year. But four tournaments are a different story. Each event has a small list of contenders, and there’s plenty of time to find out what went right, and wrong. Feinstein does a particularly good job of informing the reader about the pressures involved in trying to win a major. It’s the only time of the year when the golfers are playing for history more than the prizes, and it shows up in a variety of hooks and slices that can make the best professional look like a duffer.

Feinstein had a good run of tournaments in 1998: a Masters triumph on the final hole by Mark O’Meara, who went on to double at the British Open; an exciting comeback by Lee Janzen at the U.

S. Open; and a two-man duel at the PGA that was won by Vijay Singh. There are plenty of fun details along the way. When you finish this book, you’ll take greater enjoyment from watching the major championships in 1999.

For those who want to learn more about the first major championship on the calendar, The Making of the Masters: Clifford Roberts, Augusta National, and Golf’s Most Prestigious Tournament (Simon ∧ Schuster, $25, 0684857294) will do the trick. The Masters is a little different from the other majors. It is played on the same course every year, Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, and is not a professional or national championship. The Masters started off as a cozy little event hosted by Bobby Jones, a legendary amateur golfer from the 1920s. Jones was helped by Clifford Roberts, who was head of the club for more than 40 years and was a perfectionist when it came to the course and the tournament.

The author, David Owen, has written the story of how the Masters grew to obtain the status it has today. The research is rather remarkable. Owen had access to Augusta National’s archives, and the detail is reflected throughout the book. If a tree was moved on one of Augusta’s holes, Owen comments on it. If a player from the 1930s complains years later that a late pairing was unfair, Owen pulls out the starting times and shows the player’s complaint is invalid. As a result, The Making of the Masters clears up some misconceptions about the tournament and its founders and offers a favorable but relatively balanced portrait of all concerned.

Budd Bailey is a frequent reviewer of sports books in Buffalo, New York.

Review by Jamie McAlister The sport (or art) of fly-fishing seems to be experiencing a revival of sorts across the country’s waterways. With movies like A River Runs Through It glamorizing the artform and a proliferation of outfitters and guides offering top-notch gear and guidance, freshly hooked fly-fishing enthusiasts are wetting lines in record numbers. Of course, every artform has its history, and fly-fishing is no exception. An avid fly-fisherman, author of more than 25 books, and self-proclaimed trout bum, Paul Schullery delves into the origins and culture of fly-fishing with a bibliophilic glee, citing a creel-full of written references of the sport from its English roots to its introduction to the New World and its subsequent spread across the continent. In addition to illustrating the actual fly-fishing techniques when the common rod was a whopping 16-feet in length, there are philosophical observations and anecdotes on the shared behavioral qualities of fly-fishing brethren. For instance, there are humorous depictions of the trout bum, someone who lives to fish in isolated streams by day and makes his home in a Volkswagen beetle the rest of the time. There are differences between the New England fly-fisherman and the Montana variety, as well as the kinds of characters one meets along the streams or in the adjacent towns. The difference between wet and dry fly evolution is illustrated with historical accounts written by the sportsmen who invented techniques still popular today. The book also covers environmental characteristics of streams where trout have lived and developed for thousands of years and how they now cope with the expansion of humankind. For the fly-fishing enthusiast who’s fished a variety of streams, creeks, and rivers, or the greenhorn just breaking in his/her new rod, Schuller’s latest work is a clarifying collection of facts and essays that connects the modern fly-fisherman with the very root of his art and sport.

Jamie McAlister is the assistant editor for the Port News and lives in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.

You’ve shopped and shopped for the perfect birthday present for Aunt Agnes, but to no avail. You need help, my friend, and you’ve come to the right place. What birthday gift is always in season, never spoils, and is just the right size? Books, of course! If you are in need of a birthday gift for Aunt Agnes, or anyone else, read on.

Living in an age where information is readily available at your fingertips, old habits like letter-writing have been elevated to art form status. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has taken letters written to America’s most political pets and compiled them in Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids’ Letters to the First Pets (all ages). In addition to the wonderful letters (many reproduced in the original handwriting), Mrs. Clinton provides background information on her two pets and parenting advice. Funny photographs, mostly of Socks and Buddy making themselves at home in the White House, make this book enjoyable to read and just look at the pictures. Is Aunt Agnes (or someone else) turning 50? Then Fifty on Fifty: Wisdom, Inspiration, and Reflections on Women’s Lives Well Lived (Warner, $30, 0446523690) is just the ticket. Journalist Bonnie Miller Rubin interviews 50 women who are either approaching or have passed their half-century birthday. The interviewees are varied (Gloria Allred, Nell Carter, Erica Jong, and Diane Von Furstenberg, to name a few), and Rubin provides a biographical sketch for each. Some found success at an early age, others much later, and others aren’t convinced they are there yet. A good choice for anyone who is taking a life inventory.

Your birthday-er is a golfer, and you don’t know a nine iron from a fire iron? Don’t despair any golf lover would enjoy The Greatest Biggest Golf Book. Measuring in at only 1.82 x 5.97 x 4.02 inches, it’s packed with facts, statistics, tips, and even famous lies about this time-honored game. How far did Alan Shepard’s golf balls travel when he played on the moon? Who wore a suit of armor when he played? A must-have for any golf addict.

What if you don’t know Aunt Agnes very well, but well enough to send her a birthday gift? The solution: a book about birthdays. The Power of Birthdays, Stars, and Numbers: The Complete Personology Reference Guide (Ballantine, $24.95, 0345418190) isn’t a big book of horoscopes; it offers all sorts of information about astrology, fixed stars, numerology, and specific profiles for every birthday of the year. Be sure to peek at Aunt Agnes’s birthdate for insight into next year’s gift; it’s never too early, you know.

Our Oregon-based reviewer and outdoors expert Wes Breazeale suggests To the Summit (Black Dog ∧ Leventhal, $39.98, 1579120415) for the outdoorsperson in your life. He writes the following: To the Summit is both a magnificent look at 50 of the world’s most intriguing mountains and a fascinating exploration of the history of each mountain and the sport of climbing. With six sections representing each continent (Australia and Antarctica are combined), each chapter looks at an individual mountain and often includes profiles of famous climbers. Scattered throughout the book are anecdotal tales from people who have climbed the mountains, brief examinations of climbing gear and techniques, and bits of history from the world of mountain climbing. To the Summit would be an obvious favorite for anyone interested in climbing, but would also make a beautiful gift for any outdoor enthusiast, photography lover, or travel buff.