Red Smith's Heavenly Writing, The Angels' Hellish History And Some Glorious Baseball Photos

RED SMITH ON BASEBALL
Ivan R. Dee, $24.95

Smith has been anthologized about as often as Edgar Allan Poe , but not recently on his own, so this latest collection is more than welcome. And it comes not a moment too soon, because there may be dot.com drones out there who are unfamiliar with the work of the sportswriting craft's one acknowledged genius. The guilty parties should tear themselves away from their infernal computers long enough to read at least a sampling of the great man's work.

Smith was, for the better part of half a century, sportswriting's voice of sanity. He resisted the two most common failings of the business—cynicism and sentimentality—and employed in their stead an amused detachment and the gifts of a born storyteller. Smith had his icons ( Joe DiMaggio , the "club pro") and his adversaries (anyone who served as baseball commissioner), but he never lost his perspective or his sense of humor. Further, he was a flawless writer of the E.B. White school of absolute clarity. The words flowed with a seemingly effortless grace that belied the "bleeding" he said he suffered before the typewriter.

This book covers Smith 's work from 1941 to 1981 (he died, at age 76, in 1982), and what strikes the reader foremost is that though there's nary a clunker here, the man actually got better with age. Read, for example, his affectionate but unsparing 1973 profile of Babe Ruth or this 1980 condemnation of the designated hitter rule: "It relieves the manager of all responsibility except to post the lineup card on the dugout wall and make sure everybody gets to the airport on time."

Good to have you back, old friend.

THE ANAHEIM ANGELS
By Ross Newhan
Hyperion, $14.95

The good lord has not been kind to the Angels . This, in fact, is a team seemingly star-crossed from the day it first took the field as the Los Angeles Angels , in 1961. Not only has it experienced the customary assortment of injuries, freak accidents and sorry disappointments that afflict other hard-luck outfits, but it has also endured tragedy. Two players were killed in auto accidents, another was murdered and a third committed suicide. This is not to mention a batting champion who went balmy or a bus crash that almost cost the manager his life.

At the center of all this misfortune was the team's genial owner, movie cowboy Gene Autry , a man loved by all and betrayed by many. It's a helluva story, and Newhan, a veteran L.A. sports-writer, tells it with just the right touch of irony. Despite all the gloom, there are some hearty laughs along the way.

IMAGES OF AMERICA
New York Giants ; Baseball in
Detroit ; Baseball in World War II
Europe ; Baseball in Tampa Bay
Arcadia Publishing, $18.99 each

This is an interesting pictorial series, some of it dealing with conventional subjects (the Giants , the Tigers) and some with the relatively obscure (armed services baseball during World War II, Tampa Bay baseball history). The photographs are excellent, and the caption writing, by different authors, is informative enough, save for some peculiar constructions in the Tampa Bay book and the odd statistical error in the Detroit volume. ( Hank Greenberg hit his 58 homers in 1938, not '39, as the caption incorrectly informs us.) But the price is right.