BASEBALL AS AMERICA: Seeing Ourselves Through Our National Game

Packed with over 200 photographs, this companion to the upcoming national tour of pieces from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum celebrates the sport from its mythical 19th-century beginnings to the 2001 retirement of modern icons Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken. Familiar images abound (Ty Cobb's slide into third base, children playing sandlot ball, etc.), but the central focus is on artifacts: uniforms, scorecards and boxes of Wheaties, the bats used in record-breaking home runs and the handwritten manuscript of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." FDR's letter urging the resumption of games after Pearl Harbor and a baseball found in the World Trade Center debris poignantly underscore America's consistent salute to and dependence upon its national pastime. But while functioning much like a museum, itself, the volume is more than simply an exhibition catalogue. Essays and stories—some newly written for this collection—feature dozens of writers, players and personalities from Walt Whitman to Dave Barry, Jackie Robinson to Paul Simon, and examine the game's cultural and historical significance. Readers won't find here an in-depth exploration as in Geoffrey Ward/ Ken Burns's Baseball: An Illustrated History, but the range of topics is exhaustive. The less glamorous aspects of baseball's history such as segregation and the cancellation of the 1994 World Series are given equal playing time alongside the worship of diamond deities and the celebration of the game's historical moments. This entertaining presentation, divided into groupings on baseball as ritual, freedom, opportunity and innovation, is a must for anyone who proudly echoes Tom Brokaw's sentiment as he writes "remember the final two words in our national anthem: 'play ball!' " (Mar.)

Forecast:Due to appear on shelves in time for baseball season, this PBS companion will sell hugely.