"Baseball and the Press: The National Pastime in American Culture" will be the topic of the University Forum lecture set for Feb. 7.

Alan Schwarz, a freelance reporter, will discuss his views on how news coverage of the sport has gradually evolved from one of highly literary, romantic newspaper writing by journalists who considered players to be heroes, to a more realistic, skeptical attitude that is better suited to radio, television, and the Internet.

On Feb. 8, The University Forum lecture will feature Wye J. Allanbrook, a music professor from the University of California, Berkeley, who will present "Mozart and the Lament, or the Perils of Musical Biography."

Allanbrook will examine the validity of musical biography as exemplified by the story that claims that Mozart composed his wife's screams of pain during childbirth into his String Quartet in D Minor.

Allenbrook will draw some conclusions about what music might tell us about the biography of the composer.

Both lectures are set for 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Natural History. All University Forum lectures are free and open to the public.

The University Forum lecture series is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and is underwritten by the UNLV Foundation. For more information on the series, call 895-3401 or send an E-mail to: forum@nevada.edu.