GIFT BOOKS IN BRIEF : TED WILLIAMS: The Seasons of the Kid <i> by Richard Ben Cramer, photo editors Mark Rucker and John Thorn (Prentice Hall Press: $40).</i>

Baseball is a pastime of memories and myths, all the sweeter for the way the colorful tales of grand victories and bittersweet defeats are expanded upon as they are handed down from generation to generation. But there’s always a special place in your heart for the stars of your youth--players, for anyone raised in the ‘40s and ‘50s, like The Kid.

That was the nickname given Ted Williams because the tall, lanky San Diego native was just 21 when he came up to the big leagues in 1940. Williams--who played left field for the Boston Red Sox from that rookie season, when he led the league in runs batted in, to 1960--was a fiercely independent man who got into feuds with both fans and the press. But he was also arguably the greatest pure hitter in the history of the game, the last player to hit .400 in the majors (1941).

Williams’ success as a batter was attributed to various factors, including unfailing discipline at the plate, superior eyesight and a perfectly coordinated swing. But it is Williams’ intense competitiveness that most interests Cramer, a Pulitzer Prize reporter, as he traces Williams’ career in this warmly affectionate, mostly pictorial work. The photographs range from old magazine covers to bubble gum cards to childhood scenes. Mostly, however, they focus on Williams the batter as the camera tries time and again to capture the magic of his matchless swing--allowing fans who actually saw The Kid at the plate to reminisce and fans who didn’t . . . to just try to imagine its grace and power.