March 2006 Cover Courtesy: St. Martin's Press Inside The Draft • Dick Friedman's review | Read an excerpt | Buy it Hot Off The Press Game of Shadows By Mark Fainaru-Wade, Lance Williams ($26). The much-talked-about book reveals the extent of Bonds' steroid use. Home Plate Don't Move: Baseball's Best Quotes and Quips By Eric Zweig ($15.95). The most colorful quotes from some of baseball's best personalities. The Book on The Book: An Inquiry into Which Strategies in the Modern Game Actually Work By Bill Felber ($24.95). The author looks at the culture behind the Duke-UNC rivalry through interviews with players, coaches and residents of Tobacco Road. Eagle Blue: A Team, a Tribe, and a High School Basketball Team in Arctic Alaska By Michael D'Orso ($23.95). A look at the popularity and influence of basketball in the remote region of Arctic Alaska. Clearing the Bases: Juiced Players, Monster Salaries, Sham Records, and a Hall of Famer's Search for the Soul of Baseball By Mike Schmidt ($24.95). The 12-time All-Star emerges from his relatively private lifestyle to speak out about baseball's "Juiced" era, with its steroid-pumped players, callous owners and dubious home run kings. Five Under $5 Think words are cheap? These books won't break your bank (prices from amazon.com): • Bloody Sundays: Inside the Rough-and-Tumble World of the NFL By Mike Freeman ($4.19). The author goes onto the sidelines and inside the locker rooms to give the reader a sense of what the NFL experience is really like. • Golf Etiquette By Barbara Puett, Jim Apfelbaum, Carrell Grigsby and Tom Kite ($4.99). The authors give a few tips about respect and etiquette on the golf course. • A Civil War: Army vs. Navy - A Year Inside College Football's Purest Rivalry By John Feinstein ($4.49). A look inside the storied rivalry, from the perspective of the defensive captains from each 1995 squad. • Sometimes You See It Coming: A Novel By Kevin Baker ($4.49). The story of a talented but reclusive baseball star and his relationship with his teammates. • The Making of the Masters: Clifford Roberts, Augusta National, and Golf's Most Prestigious Tournament By David Owen ($4.98). A critical and complex portrait of Augusta National Gold Club and its founder, Clifford Roberts.

By Dick Friedman, SI.com

Here's a strategy for those of you hunkering down for the NFL draft on April 29 and 30: Pick a likely mid-round choice to track and root for. To some degree, this is the approach taken by Pete Williams in The Draft (St. Martin's Press, 328 pages, $24.95), his well-reported look at last year's event and the machinations leading up to it.

Williams, a Tampa Bay-area writer, tells his story through several prisms. He tracks three potential draftees, onetime blue-chippers with uncertain fates: Virginia defensive end Chris Canty, whose blown-out knee has sent his stock plummeting; Wisconsin defensive tackle Antajj Hawthorne, who tests positive for marijuana; and drop-prone Georgia wide receiver Fred Gibson.

The author observes the scrum of agents looking to land prize catches, particularly Atlanta-based Pat Dye Jr. and Todd France. And he makes superb use of his access to Virginia coach Al Groh and to the draft room of the Atlanta Falcons and the thought processes of their president and general manager, Rich McKay. Even if you already know how it all turns out, the plot, as it were, is as suspenseful as many a regular-season game.

As Williams portrays it, prepping for the events that often determine draft position -- the NFL Combine in Indianapolis and the various "pro days" held at colleges for likely draftees -- resembles nothing so much as the way Miss America contestants are primped for the runway. (Like the ladies, the aspiring pros often are coached by media consultants who instruct them on how to answer questions during their interviews with interested teams.)

A whole cottage industry has sprung up to ready players for their pre-draft workouts: As Williams notes, Atlanta-based fitness guru Chip Smith "tells potential clients that he can shave two-tenths of a second off their forty-yard dash time, increase their bench press by four to five repetitions, improve their vertical leap four to six inches, and help them run faster shuttles."

Of course, such teaching for the test has produced combine wonder boys who became on-field busts, most notably former BC defensive end Mike Mamula, who in 1995 parlayed an off-the-charts showing at Indy into a first-round selection by the Philadelphia Eagles -- for whom he had a lackluster career. "Mamula," writes Williams, "still is cited throughout the league as a cautionary tale of irrational combine exuberance."

Williams also includes a five-question sample of the notorious 50-question Wonderlic test given to prospective draftees and which recently caused so much grief for Texas quarterback Vince Young, who reportedly scored a subpar 16. (Anyone glancing at the questions will have much sympathy for Young and his cohorts.) And, most educationally, Williams delves into scouting jargon: "A chiseled guy is said to have a 'beach body.' ... Then there's a guy's butt, or 'bubble.' Linemen need to have a big bubble."

Describing then-Atlanta executive Tim Ruskell's view of one prospect, he notes, "Ruskell was not gung-ho about Elton Brown, Virginia's 330-pound, All-American guard who was projected as a first-round pick in the draft.... 'Brown does not move well laterally,' Ruskell says. 'He's not a bender, which is to say he has tight hips.'" (The Arizona Cardinals bent enough to take Brown, tight hips and all, in the fourth round, and he started nine games for them last season.)

The book's most fascinating sections reveal the mind of McKay and his surprising emphasis on a player's making it through what he calls "the character filter." Declares McKay, "It's not enough to say, 'This is a good kid, he works hard and has no problems off the field.' ... Not good enough. We want to know where he came from, what his parental situation was. We want to make sure the scouts have talked to the high school coach. We want to know about his education, so we talk to the academic advisor about every player. We want to hear from the position coach, the head coach, teammates, and ask their views of the player. Then obviously we want to know all the off-the-field issues. You're developing a whole picture and it takes time."

To grade athletic performance and potential, Atlanta uses a common worst-to-best, 1.0-to-8.0 scale. "Anyone rated 6.1 or higher is considered a star, a player who consistently makes plays to win games," Williams notes. (Michael Vick is a 7.0, All-Pro tight end Alge Crumpler a 6.7.) To chart personality issues, prospects receive two A-to-F letter grades, the first for "football character," the second for "personal character." UAB wide receiver Roddy White, Atlanta's eventual first-round pick, was "a 6.2 CC player and an excellent value at number 27." (By the way: SI's Dr. Z, in his mock draft, correctly predicted that the Falcons would take White, who would go on to start eight games, make 29 receptions, average 15.4 yards a catch and score three touchdowns in 2005.)

In The Draft, there are happy endings and not-so-happy ones. The only one I'll reveal is the triumph of France, an up-and-coming agent who never before had a first-round client but who last year broke the bank by representing three in the top half -- Auburn running back Ronnie Brown (overall No. 2), his teammate, cornerback Carlos Rogers (ninth), and Georgia safety Thomas Davis (14th) -- and negotiating a $34 million contract for Brown with the Miami Dolphins, the richest non-quarterback pact in draft history. "It wasn't that confusing," France said of the negotiations. "It's a recruiting thing."

To throw a couple of flags: The book is needlessly repetitious (we are reminded several times about how Canty shredded his ligaments against Syracuse, and that his mother, Shirley, is a pastor). And we'll penalize Williams five yards for overuse of "undersized."

Still, The Draft is a must for your own draft room. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bone up for the Wonderlic -- and bulk up my bubble.