* A look at the inner sanctum of The BookShelf

For those of you who have expressed a curiosity as to my personal library, here’s a sampling:

Most of the books are in the attic, which I know isn’t a great idea for any number of reasons. Before the great flood of ’08, I had a nice bunch of book cases, but afterward, once we had the basement refinished, I took a number of them downstairs, which explains, only in part, the general chaos and seeming disarray.

Trust me, I know where everything is. I have it arranged by category: biographies, team histories, reference, negor leagues, international, minor leagues, fiction, statistics, etc. The only thing that’s missing is the Dewey decimal system.

The picture of Ruth you see at the top of the photo is the back of a jean jacket, painted by my nephew, Paul, about 20 years ago.

And since, as I’ve said, baseball cards can fit on a bookshelf…. In this case, whatever I have left over from the “old days” is in this footlocker.

There are even books on the stairs lading up to the attic. Baseball jenga!

Since I do most of my writing in the basement, I moved a good portion of the books down there, at least the ones to which I refer more often, plus the new ones that come in that I review.

This doesn’t including the periodicals, which take up several large containers.

Unfortunately, I’ve come to a point where I think it’s time to thin out the herd. Sad, perhaps, but I’m becoming more Zen about possessions. After all, you can’t take it with you.

Tagged as: baseball books, Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf