Rather than try to match superlatives with other reviewers of Roger Angell's new baseball book [Late Innings] let's just say Angell is back, and the stuff is as good as ever. That should be news enough for most fans, because Angell is special to so many of us….

The degree of his caring about baseball, I think, is what makes Angell so special. Quite apart from his tremendous technical knowledge and his sharp eye for a significant, generally unnoticed detail, he obviously loves the game unstintingly. And anything that threatens it—such as the inclination of some team owners to adopt a farcical playoff system in 1981—threatens him. Some of us appreciate that.

As always, Angell is mainly concerned with major league players, but there are some rewarding side trips, notably to the playing fields of Yale in the company of Smokey Joe Wood, the 91-year-old former Yale...