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What: “Jim Murray, The Last of the Best;” Los Angeles Times publication ($15.95)

I won’t deny the self-interest here.

This is a book by former Times sports columnist Jim Murray, edited by Times sports staffers and published by The Times.

He was ours, we loved him and we don’t have any trouble puffing up our chests and saying that.

It became quite apparent, ever since Murray’s death in August, that a new selection of the columns of The Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning legend was something the public wanted. At a memorial service about a month after Murray’s death, Jerry West of the Lakers, one of the speakers, said he wished there could be a book of all his columns so we could keep him close forever.

“Jim Murray, The Last of the Best” is a selection of his best works from the last nine years of his career at The Times: 10 columns a year for each year, starting with 1990. Ninety Murray columns from the ‘90s.

It also includes his first column, in February 1961, and his last, the day he died, Aug. 16. There is a foreword by former Dodger Manager Tommy Lasorda and transcripts of the speeches from the Sept. 26 public tribute to him. Besides West, speakers included Al Michaels, Chris McCarron, Al Davis, Ann Meyers Drysdale, Chick Hearn and Vin Scully.

It was Scully who served as the cleanup batter that day in Dodger Stadium, striking the keynote: “This is not an overcast day, nor is it a gloomy day. The Irish would call it a soft day. And considering the man whose memory we honor today in this hardhearted world, it’s a perfect day.”

This book is a collection of recent columns by a man whose wonderful manipulation of the written word turned many a hardhearted day into a soft one for readers.

He was 78 when he died, and he hadn’t lost his fastball. But then, you would expect me to say that.

See for yourself. It’ll be in bookstores today, and there’ll be order forms from time to time in this newspaper.