The Bookshelf Conversation: Howard Megdal

I am always excited to see a new book come out on Jewish baseball. It was a main part of my job as sports editor of the New Jersey Jewish News to seek out anything to refute the canard that “members of the tribe” are bookish and unathletic.

So imagine my delight when I learned of a revised edition of The Baseball Talmud by Howard Megdal, originally published in 2009.

A lot has happened in the intervening years. Players like Ryan Braun, Ian Kinsler, and Kevin Youkilis joined the list of Jewish MLBers or moved up in the rankings significantly. As Megdal and I discuss, The Baseball Talmud has grown, literally. The new version is larger than the original both in trim and page numbers to accommodate the new athletes as well as additional information, mostly advanced metrics that were not commonplace more than a decade ago.

Here’s the piece I wrote when the first edition of TBT was released.

Megdal is not just a one trick pony. In addition to baseball, he has a passion for women’s sports which he covers on theixsports.com and thenexthoops.com.

Also in the Megdal oeuvre:

• Wilpon’s Folly: The Story of a Man, His Fortune, and the New York Mets (2011)
• Taking the Field: A Fan’s Quest to Run the Team He Loves Hardcover (2011)
• The Cardinals Way: How One Team Embraced Tradition and Moneyball at the Same Time (2016)

A heads-up and and apology. The problem with doing these interviews live is that there’s always the possibility of glitches. That combined with my lack of editing skills will be evident in the presentation. Thanks for your forbearance.

Oh, and by the way, I’ve had a few comments about the fact that my face is always in the shadows. That’s just the reality of doing these from my basement office. Yes, I could remove the hat, but then you would have the glare off my bald pate. Pick your poison.