ROOKIE FIRST BASEMAN

Neat as the crack of a bat, this latest by the author of Rose Bowl All American and Tournament Forward is a sustained, three dimensional baseball yarn of character regeneration to Big League standing -- without the overblown manly histrionics common to sports juveniles. It didn't take seventeen-year-old Johnny Parr long to work his way up through the Tiger's farm system to Detroit's big league team, but it wasn't long before his instability and hot-headedness, familiar to his former managers, began to catch up with him- muddling his play and causing fines and suspensions. Growing up with a drinking father left its mark, but even when Parr Sr. reforms, Johnny cannot adjust himself to his teammates or to cooperative team play. Shock psychology by a fatherly coach and Johnny's in desire to be one of the gang do the trick. A minimum of moral uplift in the locker room, and plenty of baseball.