* National Pastime Radio: Darling Ron

Former Mets’ favorite and current broadcaster Ron Darling humps his new book, The Complete Game: Reflections on Baseball, Pitching, and Life on the Mound, on today’s Brian Lehrer Show.
You can hear the segment here

* New York event notice: Gelf’s Varsity Letters sports reading series

Sponsored by Gelf Magazine (motto: “Looking over the overlooked”).

Gelf’s Varsity Letters sports reading series returns to New York on Thursday, April 2, at 8 p.m, with an all-baseball night in time for Opening Day. At this free monthly event at a Lower East Side bar, hosted by Gelf, Alex Belth, Greg Prince, and Matt McCarthy will read from and talk about their work, and take questions.

• Belth (read the Gelf interview with Belth here) and Prince (read the Gelf interview here) blog about the Yankees and Mets, respectively, capturing fans’ passion for the hometown teams.
• McCarthy (interview here) is the author of a tell-all memoir about his time as a minor-leaguer.
• Mets poet Frank Messina (interview here) will read samples of his verse.

Location: Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street (between Forsyth and Eldridge; look for the hot-pink awning with the words “Health Club” on it.). Call 212-334-9676. Doors open at 7:30; readings start at 8 sharp.

* RK Review: New York Yankees and The Meaning of Life

by Derek Gentile. MVP Books, 2009.

This was one of these titles that, too me and like many movie trailers, was more exciting than the actual product.

I was actually expetcing a philosophical (or at least mock) treatise about how the Bronx Bombers reflected many issues of life, the ups and downs, the victories and defeats. You know, deep stuff.

Instead what we have from Gentile — author of such excellent offering as Baseball’s Best 1000 and the new Splitters, Squeezes, and Steals : The Inside Story of Baseball’s Greatest Techniques, Strategies, and Plays — an album of photos and quotes about the Yankees from their nascent days to the present, in roughly chronological order.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Quite the contrary, many of those photos, almost 200 of them, are rarely seen (a nice shot of Mickey Mantle in a hospital bed, happily surrounded by a bevy of nurses; Roger Maris planting a kiss on the cheek of Mrs. Babe Ruth) and are supplemented by applicable aphorisms and captions to further explain the situations.

The final page is the oft-quoted Berra-ism, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” A very apropos ending.

* which is why I don’t fantasize…

Today’s strip from “Girls & Sports,” by Justin Borus & Andrew Feinstein

* Author interview: Jeff Pearlman

Jeff Pearlman, author of the damning new biography on Roger Clemens, took a few minutes to discuss his project with The Bookshelf.

Pearlman’s latest — The Rocket That Fell to Earth: Roger Clemens and the Rage for Baseball Immortality (Harper) — is a frightening tale of a man who is at once on top of his game and in desperate need of approval and adoration.

The SI.com columnist and former senior writer for Sports Illustrated also talks about why this title wasn’t as much fun as his previous work and the process of spreading the word about his project.

Supplementing his publisher’s publicity campaign, Pearlman provides a candid look at the lengths even veteran authors must go through these days to promote their product, including creating websites and blogs, social networking, slipping postcards under windshield wipers in Florida, and even talking to outlets like this one.

Hear it here:

* RK Review: The Rocket That Fell to Earth

Roger Clemens and the Rage for Baseball Immortality, by Jeff Pearlman. Harper, 2009.

Over the last several years, almost every baseball fan — and a lot of non-fans as well — have felt a sense of betrayal. Their heroes have feet of clay; the emperor has no clothes. What makes the situation all the more sad is how  these athletes stick to their guns and deny, deny, deny in the face of what many would consider overwhelming evidence.

Roger Clemens is one of these people. Named by Brian McNamee, listed in the Mitchell Report, he has maintained his innocence, going on programs such as 60 Minutes to bring his case to America. Was it just an extention of his iron-clad will to succeed and to be in the spotlight?

Pearlman’s new bio depicts Clemens as man desperate to hold on to glory as long as possible, willing to sacrifice health, family, friendship, even the adoration of the crowd, to be, to use a phrase, “the best there ever was.” Reading inconsistencies in Clemens’ statements about his background, the author turned detective to prove some of these homespun notions false.

It is a sad tale; the reader knows how it turns out. As the pages wind through his childhood, college and minor league  career, and his rise to stardom, the pages flow faster and faster to the inevitable present (we have yet to see what his ultimate fate will be; Pearlman believes jail time is just a matter of time).

There is no doubt Clemens was a marvel when it came to preparation, throwing himself into extreme workouts even before the drug allegations were made public. Was he too single-minded in his pursuit of excellence? The answer depends on the individual’s point of view. Was Clemens’ decision to take his start on the day his wife, Debbie, was giving birth the height of selfishness or professionalism?  The same could be said when he took the mound after his beloved mother, Bess, died; but wasn’t Brett Favre hailed for playing in a Monday night game after his father passed away?

Pearlman — a columnist for SI.com and former Sports Illustrated senior writer whose previous books include The Bad Guys Won, a study of the 1986 New York Mets, and Love Me, Hate Me, a Barry Bonds biograpohy  — points to many instances where Clemens went off the deep end, perhaps none more infamous than the “splintered bat-throwing” incident against Mike Piazza in the 2000 Subway Series against the Mets. In light of the steroid and other drug accusations, many such events have been retroactively attributed to “the rage.” but it seems Clemens’ intensity predates the use of pharmaceuticals.

The whole story is a melodrama: poor, unathletic boy overcomes humble beginings, becomes a superstar, takes everything for granted, and falls mightily. It would be interesting to get a psychologist’s take on the book. In the meantime, Pearlman has afforded us the opportunity to take a peek inside Clemens’ head for ourselves. Like a car wreck, it’s hard to turn away.

* Mensa meeting

The following comes from my Mensa page-a-day calendar (no wisecracks) for March 19:

The storage box for my baseball cards has room for most of my cards, and, on a nearby shelf, I keep the extra 16 cards that do not fit. If I expand the length of the box by 30%, I’ll have room for all my cards, plus enough room to store another 20 cards in the future.

How many cards do I currently own?

* Can you Topps this? Artist Brian Fox

Kudos to Mr. Fox. The artist received the assignment of a lifetime. His work has been selected by Topps as a special insert into their 2009 set. But not as a mere insert. Distributed among the thousands of packs are “redemption cards” which can be exchanged for one of 50 individually drawn card-size sketches. So there’s virtually no way to collect them all, making each one even more valuable.

Among Fox’s collector’s items:

Josh Beckett

David Ortiz

Babe Ruth (5 cards)
Ty Cobb (3)
Mickey Mantle (3)
Jackie Robinson (2)
Manny Ramirez (2)
Chase Utley (2)
Derek Lee
Jorge Posada (2)
Mariano Rivera
Chipper Jones (3)
Josh Hamilton (2)
Dustin Pedroia (2)
Magglio Ordonez
David Ortiz (2)
Jose Reyes
Ichiro Suzuki (3)
Randy Johnson
Vlad Guerrero
Andy Pettitte
Mike Lowell
Albert Puljos
Ryan Braun (2)
Ryan Howard
Jacoby Ellsbury
Jim Thome
David Wright
Ken Griffey Jr.
Derek Jeter
Alex Rodriguez
Johan Santana
Alex Rios
Josh Beckett (right)
Jonathan Papelbon
Greg Maddux

I had the chance to share a few minutes with Fox to discuss his craft, the technical demands of “drawing small,” and the philosophical difficulty the Red Sox Nation-based artist had in working on portraits of Yankees players.

For more information on Fox and his work, visit his website.

Portrait of the artist.

Brian Fox with the Red Sox' Kevin Youkilis

* A dubious selection

USA Today published this list of “Five authors make a pitch for baseball.”

I wonder how hard Milano’s PR people are pushing the book. To be honest, I have not read it and want to be fair. But to have hers get top billing over thoughtful and laborious efforts by the likes of Paul Dickson, Peter Morris, and Bruce Weber seems wrong. And we won’t even discuss the choice to put her book’s picture in the piece.

* “I got yer peanuts and Cracker Jack right here, grandpa.”

Because I keep cookbooks on the shelf, and that’s close enough for jazz…

The New York Times ran two pieces today on the food fans can expect at the new area ballparks, one for the Yankees, and one for the Mets.

TEAM PLAYER Masaharu Morimoto and other chefs will cook.

The Delta Sky360 Club, a restaurant complex under construction at Citi Field, will have 1,600 premium seats behind home plate.