Baseball: Startling Stories Behind the Records

Despite this book's subtitle, there are no startling stories here: the author merely describes the records and provides little new information about them. The book starts on an up-to-date note with a batter-by-batter description of Roger Clemens's 20-strikeout game last year. Some of the succeeding sketches are amusing: Bert Campaneris and Cesar Tovar playing every position in a game, and Hub Pruett striking out Babe Ruth 13 times in a row. But much of the book has the feel of filler: the ""records'' include Roy McMillan, a softball player, being signed by the Cincinnati Reds before ever playing one game of baseball; a high school student with an 0.18 ERA; a father and son pitching to Ted Williams; a player who paid to get into the ballpark. Many of the events have been dealt with in more depth in other books, making this title superfluous for the baseball library. (June)