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What: “Ted Williams: The Pursuit of Perfection”

Authors: Jim Prime and Bill Nowlin

Publisher: Sports Publishing L.L.C.

Price: $39.95

Besides the stories and photos of Ted Williams in this 256-page coffee-table book, there is an audio CD that includes actual calls, reactions and interviews with Williams.

The stories for the book were culled from various sources, some written by big names in sports, others by ordinary people whose lives were touched by Williams.

Some of the stories are surprising. There’s one from a fan, a college professor in Wisconsin, who wrote to Williams in 1982. Williams not only wrote back but met with the fan and his 5-year-old son at the Red Sox’s training camp in New Haven, Fla.

Joe Garagiola writes about being a rookie catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals and going four for four with three runs batted in in a 12-3 victory over the Red Sox in Game 4 of the 1946 World Series, then picking up a Boston newspaper the next day and reading the headline “WILLIAMS BUNTS!”

Among the more than 100 contributors are such baseball people as Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, George Steinbrenner and onetime Red Sox announcer Curt Gowdy. But maybe the best story of all comes from Bob Knight, who writes about going fishing with Williams in Russia in 1991 for the ESPN show, “The Fishin’ Hole.”

Knight, at one point, says he and Williams “might be the two most temperamental guys in sports history.”

Knight also writes about what he calls “one of the neatest things that’s ever happened to me in my lifetime.” He, Williams and a cameraman are on an airplane and Knight apparently is asleep. But he can hear the cameraman ask Williams, “What’s Coach Knight like?”

“Ted said, ‘The [SOB] is just like me!’ ”