HOT CORNER

A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, heard, observed, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here. One exception: No products will be endorsed.

What: “Ya Gotta Believe: My Roller-Coaster Life As a Screwball Pitcher and Part-Time Father, and My Hope-Filled Fight Against Brain Cancer.”

Author: Tug McGraw and Don Yeager.

Publisher: New American Library.

Price: $16.77 at amazon.com.

Two baseball autobiographies were released in recent months. One, Pete Rose’s “My Prison Without Bars,” received all the publicity and spent weeks on the bestseller lists. The other, McGraw’s book, came out with little fanfare, with plenty of copies still available at your bookstore.

And that’s a real shame.

Where Rose offers half-hearted apologies for making mistakes in his life, and begs to be put in the Hall of Fame, McGraw makes an honest appraisal of his life, owns up to the mistakes he has made, and comes away transformed. As you will too, if you read this book.

McGraw, the left-handed screwball specialist who pitched for four World Series teams, the 1969 and 1973 New York Mets and 1980 and 1983 Philadelphia Phillies, is the father of country music star Tim McGraw. But Tug refused to acknowledge his son for the first 16 years of Tim’s life. Tug McGraw writes in great detail over the pain he felt after getting to know his son, and his true sadness for all the time he wasted.

McGraw admits his wild lifestyle as a baseball player and attributes part of it to his somewhat wild home life growing up. McGraw shows how he was the life of the party, a team player and a person who inspired others.

And the book turns very sad at the end, as McGraw is losing his battle with brain cancer. The details of his last few days are hard to get through, but the fact that his family, including Tim, are there by his side through the end is testament to how Tug McGraw turned his life around before it was too late.

So put that Pete Rose book down. Donate it to your local library. Go out and get this book. You’ll be glad you did.

-- Houston Mitchell