’Tis the season — Little League World Series season, to be precise: that time of year when local writers and sports fans love to reflect on America’s favorite pastime.

But despite a generous schedule of games in those lovely Southside stadiums, one can’t spend all one’s time at the ballpark. (I know, I know; if only … right?)

So why not pick up a decent baseball book between bouts? And frankly, among literally hundreds of volumes addressing our beloved “game of inches,” few take such an interesting slant as Daniel Okrent’s Nine Innings.

Subtitled The Anatomy of a Baseball Game, this amazing 1984 volume delves into the complexity of baseball by analyzing one single game from start to finish — a seemingly ordinary mid-season match between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Baltimore Orioles.

The date was June 10, 1982, and this was the last of four consecutive games between the two squads — the first three of which the Brewers had lost. As we wonder whether the O’s can make it four in a row, Okrent carefully dissects the entire game — pitch by pitch, swing by swing, hit by hit, substitution by substitution, with a lengthy chapter addressing each of the titular innings.

If you think that sounds boring, you must not know too much about baseball — or about Okrent.

A long-time editor at various publishers and magazines including Time, Knopf, Harcourt Brace, Life and The New York Times, Okrent is the author of eight books; he is perhaps best known as the inventor of Rotisserie League Baseball and the stat known as WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched). Okrent also has worked with such filmmakers as Woody Allen, Lasse Hallstrom and Ken Burns.

Here the author marshals his staggering, encyclopedic knowledge of the sport to examine every aspect of the game:

Coaching, hitting, pitching & fielding; how bats are made; the minor-league system; personalities and their effect on the play; marketing & revenue; trades; scouting; injuries; winter meetings; salaries & contracts; league expansion; attendance; ground crews; locker rooms; travel; batting order; warm-ups; TV & radio broadcasts, along with journalism and writers; plus background history of the sport extending back to the 1800s.

All of this is carefully interwoven with Okrent’s astoundingly attentive and detailed account of the actual game he picked, showing how this complex network of factors feeds into individual plays and strategies as the match moves forward. Most fascinating is his careful analysis of several at-bats, explaining how and why various pitches and swings were chosen as thrower, hitter, catcher and coach all try to out-think each other — with alternately exciting or disastrous results.

And what a game he chose: 16 runs on 31 hits, generating four lead changes — including one team that rallied from a multi-run deficit.

Admittedly, the book does at times get bogged down in too much background before getting back to the Brewers and Baltimore. Nonetheless, it is the finest of many volumes I’ve read on baseball — and a great way for fans to unplug after an exciting LL bout.

Especially now that the Birds are in good position to take the AL East … and maybe the pennant as well.

Play ball!