Home-run

The spectacular events of the '98 baseball summer forced some people's imaginations to ponder both undreamed-of numbers and a pair of immense shadows cast from the Yankee past. If Roger Maris's 61 in '61 was the stuff of legend, that the mighty Ruth had clobbered his inconceivable 60 in 1927 entered immediately into the national consciousness as the stuff of full-blown myth. Indeed, so much myth swirls around the Babe that reality is often captive to the fable. Not here, though. Relying heavily on contemporary newspaper accounts of the daily progress of the '27 season, Robertson goes to bat for the truth in this fascinating and well-conceived compendium of research and analysis that also examines Ruth's complex and often testy relationship with teammate Lou Gehrig. Every game in which Ruth popped one comes with a full box score and some kind of historical and baseball context attached. The whole year, in fact, resonates with the larger context of Lindbergh, Coolidge's decision not to run, the Sacco and Vanzetti executions, and The Jazz Singer's heralding the talkies. Such perspective carries with it immediacy; as Ruthian as the Ruth fable is in the end, Robertson makes it feel like it happened just yesterday. --Jeff Silverman

The ideal pitch for a hitter is a fastball that hangs over the plate long enough to be knocked beyond the outfield fence. Home Run, a literary tribute to batters with a knack for the long ball, presents accounts of some of the most famous home runs in baseball history.

In this smart collection edited by George Plimpton, some of the best writers on baseball (Robert W. Creamer, Roger Angell) and some of the best American writers, period (Don DeLillo, John Updike), provide unique portraits of famous sluggers (Ruth, Williams, Aaron, and Josh Gibson, to name a few), their myths, and the circumstances of famous home runs (with nods to the pitchers who served them up). And as a bonus, Plimpton includes a chronology describing a century's worth of milestones.

These writers do vastly more than document baseball history: they write about something they love, and write with conviction. For example, Japanese ballplayer Sadaharu Oh, who hit 868 career homers (to Aaron's 755), describes the feeling of hitting one out in "A Zen Way of Baseball": "As the ball makes its high, long arc beyond the playing field, the diamond and the stands suddenly belong to one man. In that brief, brief time you are free of all demands and complications.... In this moment [you] are free." --Michael Ferch

It's only natural in 1998's season of the slugger, with the focus on the race to break 61, that baseball's most prolific contemporary power hitter would be reduced to size with a quickie bio. The thing about McGwire is that he's soooo big--and not just in physical stature--that he can't be reduced, especially when his biographer produces what is essentially fans' notes.

Rains may have written nothing more than a routine biography, outlining McGwire's growth from Little Leaguer--he naturally hit a homer his first time at bat--to eventual major-league stardom, but his subject is anything but routine. The McGwire that Rains portrays is thoughtful and engaging--a man who, despite his outsized talent, grips priorities as well as a bat. Rains recounts how, on the last day of McGwire's monumental first season with Oakland, with the rookie record of 49 dingers already on the books, his wife went into labor. Instead of staying and going for 50, McGwire immediately flew back to California to take his place beside her. He can always get 50 another time.

McGwire approaches the hallowed home-run record with his trademark poise and perspective. He's only worried about one aspect of chasing the record: even if he fails to break Maris's mark, he will have accomplished something no one, not even Ruth, has done before: hitting 50 home runs in three consecutive seasons. "Is that failure," McGwire asks circumspectly. "Are people going to write that I failed?" Probably. But as Rains observes, "That thought passes after a moment.... Ever since his days growing up playing with friends at the end of a cul-de-sac in Claremont, California, McGwire has been in control of his own fate, just as he is now." --Jeff Silverman