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Periodically, the former NFL tight end who helped the Giants win Super Bowl titles after the 1986 and '90 seasons would send out letters of inquiry attempting to get the book published.

"I got some initial interest, [but] once they found out it was a novel, they said, 'Thanks, but no thanks,'" Bavaro, 45, said Tuesday at the Sports Museum of America in Lower Manhattan. "It got frustrating as far as not being able to get the manuscript in the correct shape that I wanted it to be for people to take an interest in."

Bavaro figured he wasn't doing something right. For one thing, he initially wrote part of the manuscript by hand and then typed it single-spaced on a computer, making it some 600 pages in length. He also painstakingly put the book in a three-ring binder with reinforcements on every page, not exactly the ideal format for an agent or editor. Bavaro had more or less given up on the book when his wife, Susan, encouraged him to, as he wrote in the acknowledgments, "dust it off and bring it back to life."

The manuscript eventually caught the eye of an editor at St. Martin's Press, and now Rough and Tumble is at bookstores across the nation and the former Giants tight end is doing the book-signing circuit.

Bavaro, who looks fit and now has graying hair, said he was inspired to write a novel after reading ex-Dallas Cowboys star Peter Gent's raucous 1973 football novel North Dallas Forty in high school.

"I've always liked to write," Bavaro said. "I've always wanted to try it. But reading North Dallas Forty kind of made me see that it was possible for a pro football player to write a novel. I liked the fact that he wrote a novel as opposed to a memoir or an autobiography."

The novel tells the tale of a fictional football player named Dominic Fucillo who, like Bavaro, is an Italian tight end for the New York Football Giants. Fucillo is a veteran player who is having the toughest season of his career when the team's star linebacker, a player who lived on the edge and enjoyed the nightlife, is found beaten to death in the stadium parking lot.

"It's really kind of a thriller set in the football world," Bavaro said. "It's about a guy going into the last year of his career and dealing with a knee injury very similar to the one I had, dealing with the end of his career and his life as he knows it. And also dealing with some things around him that he was never aware of until his life starts to crumble."

The book jacket includes advance praise from Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis, former Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann and former Giants wideout Phil McConkey, who worked with Bavaro as a sales trader before Bavaro left and began working on the book again.

"Just when you thought you had it figured out, the book takes an unexpected turn," Weis said. "I could not put it down."

Bavaro is a man of deep religious faith who signed books with the words "God Bless." So it was difficult for him to use the colorful language common among many pro athletes. He often wrote hyphen-filled words instead of profanities.

"When I read stuff, I don't really like to see swear words," he said. "I don't think they're necessary. But in print, sometimes it's called for and other times it's just gratuitous. It's hard to write football without swears, though."

Bavaro says he has limited contact with the Giants and is unable to watch many games living in New England, but he did see the Super Bowl run leading to the upset win over the Patriots earlier this year.

"I was very happy to see them be successful," Bavaro said. "I don't know anybody on the team. I was happy for Tom Coughlin as an old coach. I was happy for the Mara family. They're great people. But as far as my personal connection, I haven't been a player there since 1990."

This year Bavaro has only watched one quarter of a Giants game (against Washington), yet he knows the team is unbeaten and considered by some the best outfit in the NFL. "They didn't look that great in that game, but they still won," he said. "And that's all you need to do in this league, is win. You don't have to be a world-beater, but they seem to be getting better and better every week." Bavaro likes Giants tight end Kevin Boss, and thinks he's a better fit for the franchise than Jeremy Shockey, who was traded to New Orleans before the season.

"I like this Kevin Boss," Bavaro said. "I think he's a natural. He's a good size, physical player, great hands. He's more of a natural type of tight end. Just kind of works his way in there effortlessly, whereas Shockey was forcing it. Shockey is a bull in a China shop, that's his style of play. And this kid is more like running water. He just finds his way, the easiest way. Sometimes that's the most effective. But Shockey's going to do great down in New Orleans with that offense and the quarterback. They're going to feature him, and I think this kid Kevin Boss is the best thing for the Giants right now."

And what's next for Bavaro?

"I have a second manuscript finished and I'm going to start the editing process," he said. "It's about two high school buddies going through the recruiting process."

After Rough & Tumble, maybe this one doesn't sit in his basement for a decade before it gets published.