George Tabb grows up.

PLAYING RIGHT FIELD: A JEW GROWS IN GREENWICH BY GEORGE TABB SOFT SKULL PRESS, 220 PAGES, $13.95

GEORGE TABB'S first New York Press story concerned his brief, hapless stint as a roadie for the Ramones. It was funny as hell, and made it immediately clear that he had a style all his own.

Over the years, I must admit preferring the stories he wrote about his childhood. The punk rock pieces were still funny, but pissing people off (something Tabb did well) was too easy. When he reached back, he revealed a depth many readers may not have suspected. There were some solid, often very painful emotions there, and he could set those down as easily as he could the Fuck You's-and still make them funny.

That's why I was glad to see his first book, Playing Right Field, focus on his childhood in Greenwich. Spanning the years between second and tenth grades, Tabb recounts his experiences with exploding crucified frogs, rapist dogs, homicidal turtles and astronaut hamsters. He pukes a lot, shits his pants on the Thunderbolt and is beaten up by what seems to be three-quarters of the population of Greenwich.

His dad beats him up. Kids on the bus and in school beat him up. So do girls and blind kids. Those who don't beat him physically do so verbally, because he's the rare Jew living in the super-rich Anglo enclave. Every corner he turns, someone's calling him "Jew" or "kike" and kicking his ass. Tabb makes 1970s Greenwich sound a lot like 1930s Berlin.

Tabb eventually prevails, mostly by keeping his wits about him, exacting occasional revenge and meeting a few people along the way who accept him: hippie baseball coaches, drunken music teachers, the mother and stepfather he sees every other weekend.

In a twisted way, what he presents in these stories is a fantasy of childhood many readers will recognize. His father may abuse him and his gold-digging stepmother may openly despise him, but it's still a childhood full of little league, after-school adventures and M-80s, one where fights didn't devolve into gunplay (except for BB guns), and where kids still goofed around like kids.

Tabb's writing captures that spirit and that mindset beautifully. He encounters words and situations he doesn't understand. His body does things he'd rather it didn't. In some stories he looks back with adult eyes, but in most cases he writes from an adolescent perspective, and it works.

That's why it's no insult to say that Playing Right Field would be a perfect book to give to disaffected 13-year-olds (so long as their parents didn't see it-it's full of cuss words). George understands them, and they would understand him.