"Baseball Americana" and other Reads The Book Review

Holiday books galore for all kinds of sporting tastes are in stores, on-line and in libraries all for the reading. They range from big and beautiful coffee table clutterers to standard fare to paperback treats. A sampling follows:

"Baseball Americana," by Frank Ceresi and Harry Katz, with a nifty foreword by George F. Will (Harpercollins, $29.99, 256 pages) is a treat for the eyes. Filled with 350 illustrations as the sub-title of the book proclaims "Treasures From the Library of Congress," - the terrific tome is a tour through the decades presenting baseball in all its different tones and times.

Still in a coffee table frame of mind from MVP Books comes "The Pittsburgh Steelers" by Lew Freedman ($30,00, 192 pages) and "The New York Giants" by Lew Freedman ($30,00, 192 pages). Both books pack a punch filled as they are with hundreds of images, stats, insights and memories about each team. Highly recommended for football fans and especially those who root for the Steelers and Giants.

"Baseball Annual 2010" by the Hardball Times (Acta Sports, $21.95, 364 pages) is a mother lode of facts, figures, analyses. As usual, this is cutting edge, top of the heap stuff. The world champ of baseball annuals.

"Barney Ross" by Douglas Century (Schocken Books, $12.95, 215 pages) is paperback version of this moving and detailed account of one of the great boxers whose real name was Barnet Rasofsky. Some may remember the movie, but this book goes way beyond the stripped down story that cinema treatment presented. A WONDERFUL READ

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Harvey Frommer is his 33rd consecutive year of writing sports books. The author of 40 of them including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his acclaimed REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history (Abrams, Stewart, Tabori and Chang) was published in 2008 as well as a reprint version of his classic "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball." Frommer's newest work an oral and narrative history of Fenway Park will be published in 2010.
Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and autographed.
FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.