A consumer's guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it's in play here.

A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here.

By LARRY STEWART

Oct. 9, 2000 12 AM PT

What: “And the Fans Roared”

(book and CDs)

Author: Joe Garner (narration

by Bob Costas)

Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.

Price: $49.95

Last year Joe Garner of Encino, with research help from Todd Donoho, put together “And the Crowd Goes Wild,” a book that featured great moments in sports and also had two CDs attached inside the front cover that contained original TV or radio broadcasts of those moments. It became a bestseller, with more than 500,000 copies sold.

Garner heard from fans across the country who wanted a sequel. Since he had only scratched the surface, a sequel was a natural, and this is it.

There are 44 moments in “And the Fans Roared.” The book begins with a tribute to Jackie Robinson, who integrated baseball in 1947. The CD has Bob Wolf’s call of Robinson’s last major league at-bat, in the 1956 World Series. The last of the 44 moments is Tiger Woods’ U.S. Open victory at Pebble Beach this year, and NBC’s Dan Hicks and Johnny Miller are featured in the CD.

The book’s second segment is on Babe Ruth and the day he was honored at Yankee Stadium on April 27, 1947. The book has three pages of text and some incredible pictures of Ruth. The CD portion features Ruth’s speech to fans that day, bad voice and all.

The book’s foreword was written by George Foreman, who notes that listening to Cassius Clay’s fight with Sonny Liston in 1964 on radio made him want to be a fighter. Foreman’s moment in the book is his 1973 fight with Joe Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica. Howard Cosell’s call--”Down Goes Frazier, Down Goes Frazier”--is one of the highlights of the CD portion, narrated by Bob Costas.

One moment that Garner probably could have left out was Dec. 16, 1973, when O.J. Simpson of the Buffalo Bills topped 2,000 yards. And if he felt it necessary to include Simpson, his 64-yard touchdown run--and even his 13-yard touchdown run--against UCLA in 1967 are more memorable moments.