Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
♦ Macleans, Canada’s version of Time magazine, ran this review of Harvey Araton’s Driving Mr. Yogi: Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry, and Baseball’s Greatest Gift
♦ OnMilwaukee.com posted this on Paul Dickson’s Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick
♦ In the meantime, Bailey’s Baseball Book Reviews goes old-school, re-examining Veeck’s 50-year-old memoir, Veeck As in Wreck: The Chaotic Career of Baseball’s Incorrigible Maverick
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John Smoltz discusses his new book, Starting and Closing: Perseverance, Faith, and One More Year
R.A. Dickey does the Q&A thing with Time magazine for Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball
Dan Ewald, a former sportswriter for the Detroit Free Press, had this interview in the paper, along with these substantial excerpts (one, two, and three) from his memoir, Sparky and Me: My Friendship with Sparky Anderson and the Lessons He Shared About Baseball and Life
This one slipped under the cracks: Jim Abbott on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday to talk about his memoir, Imperfect: An Improbable Life
Cahd Harbach is maiing the rounds again now that The Art of Fielding: A Novel
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This screen cap comes from the trailer for Revolution, a new NBC science fiction program coming this fall. The show is set 15 years into the future, when electrical power has disappeared all over the planet. With the Cubs’ luck, they were probably leading in the ninth inning of the seventh game of the World Series at the time.
Well, it is a sci-fi program, in’t it then?
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♦ In its Sunday edition, the Boston Globe published this roundup of sports book reviews, including A People’s History of Baseball
♦ The Lemuria Bookstore Blog offers mini-reviews for three baseball novels: The Art of Fielding
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♦ The London Free Press (Ontario) published this piece on Calico Joe. Upshot:
Calico Joe has home run power. The baseball portions, particularly the first 100 pages or so, are more delicious than a Fenway frank.
But Grisham saves his heaviest hitting in the 198-page Calico Joe for the second half, where push comes to shove on the deeper themes of redemption and family relationships.
♦ The Memphis Commercial Appeal gave us this on on Tim Wendel’s Summer of ’68 with a most unusual introduction: “Unlike some who have been born and raised in the Christian faith, I cannot pinpoint the day Jesus came into my life. I can recall the exact day baseball did…”
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A few weeks ago I did this story about Got Balz, a feature documentary about a bar mitzva boy’s desire to honor his grandfather by donating sports equipment to the country that gave him shelter during the Holocaust — Cuba – and the red tape he encountered along the way.
With about 50 hours to go (the deadline is 12:01 PM on Wednesday), the project is less than $4,000 short of the $40K needed to proceed, so why not take a look and think about making a pledge? Like PBS, you can get all sorts of goodies depending on the level of your support.
And if they ask where you heard about it, tell Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf sent you (I always wanted to say something like that).
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“Kid” in this case being authors who have been the subject of recent profiles and Q&A pieces, including:
♦ A Daily Beast piece with Chad Harbach (The Art of Fielding)
♦ A Q&A with Hart Seely, author of The Juju Rules: Or, How to Win Ballgames from Your Couch: A Memoir of a Fan Obsessed
♦ A profile on Aaron Pribble, author of Pitching in the Promised Land: A Story of the First and Only Season in the Israel Baseball League
♦ The Lewiston/Auburn Sun Journal (ME) reported on a local appearance by Edward Rielly, author of the underreported Baseball: An Encyclopedia of Popular Culture
♦ MLBReports posted this interview with Paul Dickson, author of Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick
♦ The Dallas-FW Star Telegram posted this Q&A with Josh Lewin, (current Mets radio broadcaster and) author of Ballgame!: A Decade Covering the Texas Rangers from the Best Seat in the House
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So, back to bidness.
♦ The Hardball Times reviewed Great Hitting Pitchers, published by the Society for American Baseball Research.
♦ Baseball Reflections posted this on Major League Dads: Baseball’s Best Players Reflect on the Fathers Who Inspired Them to Love the Game
♦ I don’t know if this really counts as a review, but Slate compares Appel’s Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from Before the Babe to After the Boss
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Sorry it’s been a bit slow lately, but I’ve been trying to finish the first round of edits from the publisher for my forthcoming book, 501 Baseball Titles the Literate Fan Must Read with has an “official” release in the spring of 2013.
It’s been very educational, I must say. For example, I was a bit dismayed to find so many typos in the manuscript. As any reader of the Bookshelf knows, that’s not my string suit, but I really thought I was extra careful this time. Just goes to show — and this is important — a word processor’s spellcheck by itself is not enough. You need eyes on the page, preferably someone else’s, since the original writer has probably gone over the work so many times, the little things just don’t register anymore. I have since found out that this will be the stage where the pages get a “line edit.”
Since the manuscript was handed in last fall, I’ve also added a few 2012 titles to make it a bit more up-to-date. Not saying which; it’s a surprise.
Now the project gets into full swing and I can start finding out about foreword, “advance praise” blurbs, and all the little things that go into the making of a book. I have made these inquiries to the publisher and am looking forward to moving ahead.
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This used to be me when I was a kid:
I would constantly pester my friends to walk over the the ballpark when steel gray clouds were a portent for the end of e world.
My attitude has changed.
I play in a 50-and-over league now. I used to be on a “regular” team in my town, but I joined them late, after they’d been together for many years. They were an older bunch of fellas and we were regularly beaten — soundly, more often than not — by teams whose members were significantly younger. So I decided to take the plunge.
My current outfit consists of a nice bunch of guys. There’s a lot of the usual good-natured ribbing that goes on in such situations. We don’t hang out together much, but I think part of that is due to the lateness of the games and the distances we have to travel. My memory may be faulty (another product of age), but we won our division championship in either my first or second year with them. As a “reward” we were kicked up three divisions. We’ve come close, always making it into the playoffs, only to be eliminated in the early rounds.
This year is a bit tougher. As of today we’re 2-6, although there’s no grumbling or finger-pointing. We play close and tight, but seem to fall victim to that one bad inning. Me, I’m playing stinko. Although my last two games were pretty good, it’s nowhere near what I used to be, which I attributed more to my very-slow-to-heal ab pull than aging.
It’s the combination of my poor performance, the team’s disappointing performance, and the lateness of the games (it used to be I could leave straight from work; now I go home and have to come out again hours later), and the iffy weather that have me wishing some of these games would be postponed.It’s been rainy for the past few days and the forecast doesn’t look to improve any before the weekend. Given that information, I wish they’d make an early decision and call the game.
Sadly, I have to admit I no longer have that optimism displayed by good old Charlie Brown.
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Daniel Rapoport, a Washington journalist, author and publisher who in 1983 founded Farragut Publishing to produce non-blockbuster and out-of-the-ordinary books ranging from pasta salad and cold soup cookbooks to a history of U.S. presidents’ connections with baseball, died April 11 at his home in East Chatham, N.Y. He was 79.
The writer is referring specifically to Baseball: The Presidents’ Game
Before its closing in 2007, Farragut Publishing had published more than 20 nonfiction books. Baseball: The Presidents’ Game (1993)… explored connections between U.S. presidents and baseball, beginning with George Washington, who as an Army general played catch with troops at Valley Forge.
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In my "day job," I'm the features and sports editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper. I'm also the editor of the Bibliography Committee Newsletter for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).
I did a piece on the award-winning cartoonist Arnold Roth and he was nice enough to "immortalize" me.
Turning Two: My Journey to the Top of the World and Back with the New York Mets, by Bud Harrelson with Phil Pepe
Deadball: A Metaphysical Baseball Novel
Congratulations to Scott P. of Rochester, NY, winner of the most recent Facebook Fan drawing, Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game
Next up: Hit by Pitch: Ray Chapman, Carl Mays and the Fatal Fastball
Tell your friends!
My article on Yankees Fantasy Camp appears in the current issue of Broadside Bombers.
My article on the later biographies of Babe Ruth appears in
My article on the Mets' 1969 post-season appears in
What I just read:
Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball
Amazingly sensitive and surprisingly literate effort by Dickey and Coffey. A
Turning Two: My Journey to the Top of the World and Back with the New York Mets
A serviceable, nostalgic look at the Amazin's in their heyday. B
Calico Joe
Grisham's first baseball novel is emotional, if a bit predictable. B
What I'm reading now
Extra Innings
Damn Yankees: Twenty-Four Major League Writers on the World's Most Loved (and Hated) Team
What's next:
Butterfly Winter
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Arbitrator who ruled in Braun’s favor fired by MLB. Coincidence?
May 15, 2012 · 0 comments
Shyam Das, the arbitrator who voted to overturn MLB’s suspension of Ryan Braun for allegedly violating its drug policy, has been fired.
This was the only instance in which the MLB’s ruling was overturned. They were “outraged” at the time, when Das ruled that there were questions about the “chain of custody” of Braun’s urine sample that left enough doubt for his decision.
Das has been an arbitrator since 1999. Does it strike anyone else odd that he has been dismissed? Of course, we don’t know the whole story, but it seems a bit petulant, like things didn’t go the way MLB wanted and it brought light into the process which made them look bad, so this is their “revenge.”
According to the story by Ken Belson in today’s New York Times
Several factors? Did these factors all suddenly appear after the ruling? How convenient.
Just wonderin’.
Tagged as: Bud Selig, Michael Weiner, Ryan Braun, Shyam Das
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