Critiques en avant-première

Souvenirs of summer fun presented via multiple-choice baseball trivia questions: this well-thought-out compendium of Q&A challenges includes everything from easy-as-apple-pie soft tosses to 98-mph two seamers. Included are the most essential records and record-holding players of the U.S. national pastime, and surprising revelations about the history of the sport.

Did you know that the two most successful franchises in both leagues of MLB started out in the role of extreme but loveble losers, both having never won a championship for about 50 years? (One never won a pennant in 50 years.) Did you know that eyewitnesses have testified with directly conflicting stories about whether Babe Ruth's "called shot" in the 1932 World Series actually happened? Do you know who won the World Series the year before last, or who broke a huge and venerable home run record in 2022? Were you there for either of those historic landmarks? Just how well do you know the names of the men who set and then broke perhaps the biggest of all baseball records: namely the career home-run record?

It's all here, including a good dose of truly trivial matters — at least as viewed by the non-fanatics (fans) among us regarding the nation's best sport? The multiple-choice format allows for plenty of ringers to be thrown in along the way just to confuse things, which we think can make for some laughs, but also can make those bar bets and cocktail party disagreements easier to resolve. (We can safely eliminate Ty Cobb from consideration in questions about any record set after 1928, for example.)

Reasons to get this great collection of Baseball Trivia:

* Strike up a conversation with your baseball-fan boss

* Embarrass your uninformed friends

* Humble the blowhard who runs your office pool at World Series time

* Introduce yourself to the man or woman of your dreams who loves the sport

* Hold up your end of conversations at the next cocktail party

* Practice memorization skills on something truly worth remembering

* Win a game of Trivial Pursuits, baseball edition

* Punch up your next speech with an anecdote people really care about

* Prove you are still "with it" despite being called "past it" by all the hip kids

* Settle arguments over wagers without resorting to nunchuks!

Yes, the history and central importance of the game throughout the known universe is well reflected in this one little tome, and all without the scent of stale beer, peanuts, and Cracker Jacks that mar so many other baseball books. Play ball!