Baseball Book Brings National Pastime to Life.

• Position: WHAT'S NEW? - Baseball Americana: Treasures from the Library of Congress - Book review

The nation's capital has been sports central of late. No sooner did the NHLIs Washington Capitals win their first Stanley Cup in franchise history than Major League Baseball's annual All-Star Game came to town. In conjunction with the Midsummer Classic, the Library of Congress opened a yearlong exhibition, "Baseball Americana." Moreover, a book by the same name also has made a reappearance.

"This is one of the most-seductively designed books about the sport to come our way," wrote one reviewer of HarperCollins' reissued (as a soft cover) Baseball Americana: Treasures from the Library of Congress.

"A book like this, so rich and deep in material brings [the grand old game's] history to multifaceted life and reminds us that baseball is the sport that celebrates its history more than any other. This book itself is a form of time-traveling--a pleasurable, often surprising and aesthetic trip."

The sport that helped reunify the country in the years after the Civil War, baseball remains the National Pastime, and the Library of Congress houses the world's largest baseball collection, documenting the history of the game...