Basketball fans now have something to cheer about -- Michael Jordan's For the Love of the Game: My Story, published by Crown on October 27. First printing for the $50 book is 500,000. Hefty price, but worth it when one considers the production and design work that went into the book. Crown believes it could be "the best-designed book of the season." It was created and edited by the award winning team at Rare Air Ltd., which produced it on custom stock using an unprecedented 19-color printing process. The publisher noted that it took 47 train cars to bring the 1.25 million pounds of paper to the printer and it took an entire month to print the high-quality books. Crown's marketing game plan began with the cover of October's Vanity Fair, followed by a massive launch in Chicago, where the book virtually sold out in the first week. Full-page ads in USA Today and Chicago Tribune were followed by large ads in key NBA markets. National TV advertising begins this week. What wasn't planned was the enthusiastic recommendation from Oprah. Crown, as usual, had sent finished books to her producers in Chicago; and one admiring producer walked into Oprah's dressing room to show her the book. Oprah was so impressed she did an spontaneous spot on the book, discussing how Jordan was her all-time favorite and stating that one could "score a lot of points" by bringing this book home as a gift. Yes, she held the book up. Crown certainly wouldn't mind if His Airness agreed to do Oprah again.