Abner Doubleday may or may nothave invented the game of baseball, but it can dafely be said that Peanuts has reinvented it. No other sport, indeed no other facet of life, has proved a more delighful mainstay of Peanuts humor, or a firmer bedrock of Peanuts wisdom. (Does Charlie Brown and his pitcher's mound represent Job on his ash heap, as one critic pondered?) With never a win to their credit, Charlie Brown and his hapless teammates hang in there, surviving one hilarious disaster after another, their views of life undimmed by either continual blunder or occasional brilliance.

Here, collected for the first time in one volume, is the cream of Peanuts and baseball, including 640 daily and Sunday strips, with 80 pages in full color. No special knowledge of the game is required to enjoy what happens when Charlie Brown takes the field —full of strategy and optimism— with his singular teammates arrayed in questionable support: among them, a catcher who worships Beethoven, a four-legged shortstop, a second baseman attached to a security blanket, and a chronic fussbudget in the outfield. All the great episodes of Peanuts-on-the-diamond are here: Snoopy's pursuit of Babe Ruth's home-run record; Charlie Brown's encounter with his hero Joe Schlabotnik, the betting scandal that deprived Charlie Brown of his only win; and many more. Sandlot Peanuts is certainly the all-American combination, Peanuts and baseball, "the summer game" in a book for all seasons.