At this time of year, books about baseball come at readers like so many fastballs from a pitching machine. Among this year's more interesting offerings:

• DiMaggio: Setting the Record Straight, by Morris Engelberg and Marv Schneider (MBI, $24.95). DiMaggio's lawyer (Engleberg) writes a tell-all that challenges the negative information about DiMaggio printed in Richard Ben Cramer's 2000 biography Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life.

• The Jerome Holtzman Baseball Reader, (Triumph Books, $19.95). A collection of revered baseball writer Holtzman's favorite articles, written over the course of 50 years.

• The Little Red (Sox) Book: A Revisionist Red Sox History, by Bill "Spaceman" Lee with Jim Prime (Triumph Books, $19.95). A tongue-in-cheek look at Red Sox history from former left-handed pitcher Lee.

• The Long Ball: The Summer of '75, Spaceman, Catfish, Charlie Hustle, and the Greatest World Series Ever Played, by Tom Adelman (Little, Brown, $24.95). An account of the 1975 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds, beginning before the season and taking readers through the historic series.

• New York Yankees: One Hundred Years, The Official Retrospective (Ballantine, $50). This lavishly produced coffee-table book, an official Yankees publication, features essays, first-person accounts and reminiscenses of Yankees players.

• Pride of October: What It Was to Be Young and a Yankee, by Bill Madden (Warner Books, $24.95). Sports columnist Madden chronicles 17 former Bronx Bombers' innermost feelings about their careers.

• When Boston Won the World Series, by Bob Ryan (Running Press, $18.95). The story of Boston's surprise win over the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first-ever World Series.

• Why is the Foul Pole Fair?: Or, Answers to the Baseball Questions Your Dad Hoped You Wouldn't Ask, by Vince Staten (Simon & Schuster, $21). Why is it 60 feet and 6 inches from home plate to the pitcher's mound? How many baseballs would you have to unravel to knit a pullover sweater? Staten offers answers, trivia, baseball lore and nostalgia.