SEVEN-LETTER OBSESSION 'WORD FREAK' TAKES JOURNEY INTO WORLD OF SCRABBLE EGGHEADS.(BOOKS)

Byline: ROGER MOORE

Dip your hand into the velvet bag and you could pull out letters to make any number of funny titles for a book about the strange, cutthroat world of competitive Scrabble. ``Word Freak'' (Houghton Mifflin; 288 pages; $25) is the one author Stefan Fatsis came up with. I prefer ``Blood on the Tiles'' or ``Letter Perfect,'' but never mind.

``Word Freak'' is a delightful dip into one man's obsession with a board game. Fatsis, a reporter, immersed himself in this subculture the way Susan Orlean dove into orchid growing in ``The Orchid Thief,'' the way Tony Horwitz became a Civil War re-enactor for ``Confederates in the Attic.'' Fatsis hung out …