'Compendium of probabilities' offers humor, truth of odds

By MICHAEL PAKENHAM
BALTIMORE SUN
"Life: The Odds (and How to Improve Them)," by Gregory Baer (Gotham, $20)
On its face, it's one of those trick books, contrived to be useful for gregarious bartenders or hostesses with too many dreary guests around for the weekend. But no! Gregory Baer, a former assistant secretary of the Treasury, senior counsel to the Federal Reserve Board and author of The Great Mutual Fund Trap, has produced a serious -- although unabashedly entertaining -- piece of work.
His research is impressive: He drew on innumerable professionals and other expert sources to pull together a compendium of probabilities that seems to have no end. The odds against your bowling a perfect game last year were 4,018 to 1 -- although they were 480,094 to 1 in 1970. Baer tracks down this anomaly -- "300-gate" -- with scholarly and satisfying thoroughness.
You have a 20 million to 1 chance of becoming a saint of the Catholic Church and a 60,000 to 1 chance of striking it rich -- getting a $250,000 appraisal -- on Antiques Roadshow. If you like odds or oddities, you will treasure this tight-packed little volume.