With all the disillusionment caused by the recent steroid-fueled headlines, fans can still take comfort from a number of new titles that serve to remind us of what a great game baseball has been and continues to be. After all, except for the ugly strike in 1994-95, the national pastime has survived wars, a depression, and even the threat of talking pictures and television.

Nostalgia is always a big draw. Among the more "romantic" examples from this year's crop is GREATS OF THE GAME: The Players, Games, Teams, and Managers That Made Baseball History, by Ray Robinson and Christopher Jennision. One has to be careful when invoking the phrase "the greatest" in sports, especially in baseball. This is an open invitation for an argument as opinions fly back and forth.

As is often the case in these ornate coffee table books, the photos are the highlights; the ability of the editors/authors to find rare illustrations, rather than the same old portraits, can have an impact on the success of the volume. The text is almost secondary, although new angles can make a repetitive topic more interesting.

Robinson and Jennison, both veterans of baseball literature, have done a fine job in putting together a good combination. In addition to the subjects of the title, they offer their considered takes on "The Immortals," "The Personalities," and the greatest regular season and World Series moments, as well as hallowed ballparks. Some selections are obvious: Carlton Fisk's midnight home run in the 1975 World Series or Johnny Vander Meer's two consecutive no-hitters. But, again, every fan has his or her own opinion.

For a sense of déjà vu, BASEBALL...THE PERFECT GAME: An All-Star Anthology Celebrating the Game's Greatest Players, Teams and Moments, edited by Josh Leventhal, covers similar general topics with a different route to the same destination.

Taking advantage of a wide array of contributors such as Doris Kearns Goodwin, George Plimpton, Tallulah Bankhead, Roger Angell --- even the aforementioned Ray Robinson --- Leventhal has assembled a handsome edition, peppering the text with evocative illustrations.

Joseph Wallace, author of several memorable overviews (BASEBALL: 100 Classic Moments in the History of the Game; THE BASEBALL ANTHOLOGY: 125 Years of Stories, Poems, Articles, Photographs, Drawings, Interviews, Cartoons, and Other Memorabilia; and WORLD SERIES: An Opinionated Chronicle, among others), offers a different format that will try readers' patience --- in a good way. His latest contribution, GRAND OLD GAME: 365 Days of Baseball, takes the form of a perpetual calendar. The idea is to look at one entry per day, a temptation that might prove too strong for some to resist. Hundreds of "rare and unusual photographs" taken from the archives of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, make it a must-have for the baseball bibliophile.

One of the more unusual offerings in recent years is THE TIMELINE HISTORY OF BASEBALL by Dan Jensen. This fold-out format consumes more than 10-linear feet when unfurled and contains an amazing amount of information. One strike against this edition is that the data, although color-coded and divided into broad categories, is a bit difficult to follow.

On the flip side (literally), Jensen presents the critical elements of the game --- the equipment, uniforms, ballparks, all-star and World Series games. A nice feature is a map showing the locations of all present teams and their antecedents. He also devotes a scant 33-page booklet within the book to discuss the cultural and social aspects of the sport. TIMELINE may be short on text, but it's long on entertainment.

Everyone in the game --- managers, players and fans --- refer to an imaginary "book," a "bible" meant to explain the theory of action taken or contemplated, such as sending up a pinch-hitter, moving a defensive player to a spot on the field, or bringing in a specific relief pitcher.

Students of baseball's inner workings can turn to Bill Felber's thought-provoking treatise, THE BOOK ON THE BOOK: A Landmark Inquiry into Which Strategies in the Modern Game Actually Work, a series of essays analyzing the sport on the field and, perhaps more interesting, the game off the field, with its decision-making processes. How much is that player in the window worth? How do the owners and executives go about putting a winning team together? Felber rates the general managers, who are ostensibly responsible for the assembly process.

Readers should be warned that this is no hand-holding "how-to" book. If you pick this one up, you better have some clue about the game or you run the risk of scratching your head for hours. That said, those willing to undertake Felber's treatise will be rewarded.

3 NIGHTS IN AUGUST: Strategy, Heartbreak, & Joy - Inside the Mind of a Manager, dissects a tense three-game series between Tony LaRussa's St. Louis Cardinals and their arch-rival Chicago Cubs. Single-game analyses have been done before (A DAY IN THE BLEACHERS, NINE INNINGS), but this one looks at a progression of games and strategic moves that are more chess-like in nuance than one might imagine.

Buzz Bissinger, whose examination of the importance of high school football on a small Texas town in FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS won critical acclaim, again brings readers to middle America, putting them in LaRussa's head to understand the whys and wherefores of his profession. His choice of subject is quite understandable: LaRussa, who has won more games than any active manager, is one of a handful of managers also to hold a law degree. Of course, the manager is just the conductor. The athletes are the temperamental musicians, trying to work together to entertain their audience with a successful rendering of the sport.

Speaking of the Cubs, they are the subject of two books of their own. Gene Wojciechowski, a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine, goes Bissinger 159 contests better in CUBS NATION: 162 Games. 162 Stories. 1 Addiction. Like the classic TV show "Naked City," the author looks for tales not just from the stars, but also from back-up players, fans and stadium workers, among others, finding the odd and amusing in the most unlikely of places; details about the games themselves seem almost an afterthought.

Conversely, FEW AND CHOSEN: Defining Cubs Greatness Across the Eras, is a more traditional team study. Ron Santo, one of the greatest third basemen not in the Hall of Fame, picks his top five Cubbies at each position, modestly omitting himself from consideration. The volume has the proverbial something for everybody, a perfect blend of prose, pictures and statistics. This volume is the third in a possible series from Triumph Books; previous editions highlight the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals.

An Avril Lavigne song asks, "Why do you have to go and make things so complicated?" Another famous quote, from Bull Durham, sums it up best: "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains."

The appeal of baseball books is that they offer simple or complex explanations. Take your pick.

   --- Reviewed by Ron Kaplan