Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The Lost Art of Baseball Humor, by Gerard S. Petrone (Pocol Press, 2018) I think a lot of this book is lost on me. While Petrone obviously did a tremendous amount of research in compiling The Lost Art, much of it is not, in fact, humorous. What it is is a amazing and studious look […]
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Headnote: I’ve decided to bow to the times and include separate lists for e-books and audio books. Be aware that while many titles also appear in print versions, pretty much anyone can produce an e-book these days, so I’m not going to comment at all about the quality. As far as the audio goes, I’m […]
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These are my favorite posts, taking a look at what new baseball books are on the horizon. A few notes: Traditional print rules the land here here. There may be a Kindle edition involved, but no Kindle-only titles are included herein. Second, Amazon does not want top make my life easier. I practically never include […]
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Just finished thumbing through A History of Baseball in 100 Objects, the latest baseball release by Josh Leventhal, author of several other well-produced baseball titles. The objects included herein represent the game since before its “formal” recognized inception in the mid 1800s (and please don’t write about the exact DOB of the game). But the […]
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The Passover holidays have played havoc with my schedule, so there’s a lot to catch up on. First off, can you remember those Bicentennial Minutes that CBS used to broadcast in the months leading up to the big celebration? Well, Dan Epstein, author of the new Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial […]
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(And I hope that doesn’t mean anything dirty or inappropriate in Gaelic.) In honor of St.Patrick’s Day, I offer two Irish-themed pieces I’ve done: A review on Bookreporter.com of Charley Rosen’s The Emerald Diamond: How the Irish Transformed America’s Greatest Pastime. “The Sporting Life,”An overview of the Irish in America’s national pastime, published in the February/March […]
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A fair share of the recent Cooperstown Baseball Symposium considered myriad aspects of Casey at the Bat, which celebrates its 125th anniversary this month. The esteemed sportswriter Frank Deford was the keynote speaker for the event. Deford contributed a speculative article, “Huge Commotion in Mudville” to the July 18, 1988 issue of Sports Illustrated. Shortly […]
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Songs and Images from the Early Years of America’s Favorite Pastime, by Jerry Silverman. Alfred Publishing Company, 2007. Fans of both old-tyme baseball and music will enjoy this one. Part-music book, part-collectible (for the reproduction of the sheet music covers), part-historical analysis, The Baseball Songbook is a collection of more than 40 tunes (mostly heretofore […]
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Celebrating a couple of 19th-century Hall of Famers today. Wee Willie Keeler was born this date in 1872. He was a prominent member of John McGraw’s first group of rowdies as described by Burt Solomon in Where They Ain’t: The Fabled Life and Untimely Death of the Original Baltimore Orioles, the Team That Gave Birth […]
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They don’t get much more literary than this, which comes from the Hall of Fame’s Time Wiles via Facebook: Happy birthday to one of the first baseball writers, Jane Austen. From Northanger Abbey: …it was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, […]
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Old Hoss Radbourn, the Brutal World of Early Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had, by Edward Achorn (Harper Collins) This review comes from the Basil & Spice blog. The book tells of a time in the game when men were men, for better or worse (usually worse). Upshot: “The author’s love for […]
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is available on Amazon.com,
In my most recent "day job," I was the sports and features editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper, where I hosted another blog. Busy, busy, busy.
I did a profile piece on the award-winning cartoonist Arnold Roth and he was nice enough to "immortalize" me.
My article on the later biographies of Babe Ruth appears in
My article on the Mets’ 1969 postseason appears in
Profiles of several Jewish baseball figures appear in
