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What: “That’s Not The Way It Was--(Almost) Everything They Told You About Sports Is Wrong,” by Allen Barra; published by Hyperion Books.

Price: $10.95 paperback.

Two personal axioms clashed recently:

1. Don’t give sportswriters sports books, because they won’t appreciate them.

2. Your father will always give you the coolest gifts while you continue giving him bad ties.

As a rule I am very critical of sports books. They often assume the reader is an idiot. So when Pops gave me “That’s Not The Way It Was,” I was worried that the good-gift streak was in jeopardy.

The streak is intact.

Author Allen Barra’s 250 pages read quickly and interestingly, each segment trying to disprove a cliched school of thought. Some of the topics he picks are a bit subjective--”Are Pro Athletes Overpaid?”--but for the most part they tear down myths.

One that is more topical than could have been intended when the book was copyrighted in 1995 regards Roger Maris’ former home run record: Commissioner Ford Frick and major league baseball never put an asterisk next to Maris’ then-record 61 home runs. The reason? Simply put, major league baseball has no official publication of its own, so the famed asterisk never existed. And, as can only happen with baseball and statistics, the 1991 baseball committee on statistical accuracy voted to have the asterisk, which never existed, removed.

Barra also addresses player comparisons such as Wilt Chamberlain versus Bill Russell or Bart Starr versus Johnny Unitas. Elsewhere, he tries to expose as wrong such axioms as “You have to run the ball on offense and stop the run on defense to win” in football and “Artificial turf creates more ground-ball base hits.”

Did I say “axiom?”

When you start repeating yourself it’s time to go.

When you start repeating yourself it’s time to go.