Day by Day in Baltimore Orioles History.

• Author: BARRETT, WAYNE M.
• Position: Brief Article

IT'S AN OLD ADAGE in athletics that, as the size of the ball goes down, the quality of the sportswriting goes up. Although I'm not about to vouch for any prose concerning golf, ping-pong, or tennis, when the sphere shrinks to the circumference of a baseball, it's time to put on the reading glasses and enjoy.

* Growing up, the dream in our household was always what we called "The Halloween World Series," in which my San Francisco Giants would face my sister's Baltimore Orioles. The Halloween reference has nothing to do with the expanded playoffs that have pushed the World Series to the brink of November. Rather, it refers to the official team colors of both the Giants and O's: black and orange.

While our fantasy Fall Classic never came true, we're still avid followers of both clubs. That job has been made easier thanks to a pair of impressive team encyclopedias from Sports Publishing Inc.: The Giants Encyclopedia (by Tom Schott and Nick Peters, 600 pages, $39.95) and Day by Day in Baltimore Orioles History (by Ted...