Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
to Ozzie Guillen, who turns 47 today. I know. I found it surprising that there are two books by/about him: The Wit And Wisdom of Ozzie Guillen and A Passion for the Game: Ozzie Guillen’s Insights, Outbursts, Kudos, and Comebacks.
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The birthday boys include 10-time All-Star Steve Garvey, Hall of Fame pitcher Steve Carlton, and long (long) time manager Connie Mack. Garvey has a number of books by and about him, including My Bat Boy Days: Lessons I Learned from the Boys of Summer (Scribner, 2008); Garvey (Crown, 1986); and The Secret Life of Cyndy […]
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Branch Rickey was born this Dec. 20, 1881. When asked why he fought to make Jackie Robinson accepted in the Major Leagues, Rickey often told the story of a black teammate from his college days who was shunned by opponents. There are numerous books about Rickey, but perhaps none more detailed and insightful than Lee […]
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by Peter Golenbock. The Lyons Press, 2007. When 7 came out a few years ago, many sportswriters — especially in the New York area — considered it a shande (shame). How could Golenbock — who had heretofore published only non-fiction — have besmirched the character of the late lamented Mickey Mantle with this trashy, borderline […]
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Marty Appel was kind enough to send me a copy of the Official 2007 Yearbook of the Israel Baseball League. Appel, who used to handle PR for the Yankees back in the 1970s, has his finger in just about every Jewish/sports pie, including the IBL, the Jewish Major Leaguer Card set, and the Maccabi Haifa […]
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This week in baseball books, featuring the best-sellers according to Amazon.com on Friday, October 2. Title Rank General The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, by Joe Posnanski 1 Sixty Feet, Six Inches: A Hall of Fame Pitcher & a Hall of […]
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The Revolutionary Reign of Bud Selig, by Andrew Zimbalist (John Wiley and Sons, 2007) Allan H. “Bud” Selig has nominally been in charge of the national pastime longer than any commissioner since Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Needless to say, the game has expanded beyond what the sixteen original owners could ever have imagined. Such success […]
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The Revolutionary Reign of Bud Selig By Andrew Zimbalist (Wiley, 2007) The review appears in the current edition of SABR’s Baseball Research Journal.
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Having eaten at Mickey Mantle’s Manhattan restaurant, I found this review of a two-year old book by owner William Liederman interesting yet curious (because of the timing). Nothing to especially recommend it other than the subject matter. It’s a throwback to the days of Toot Shor‘s.
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Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports published this item on the latest struggles by David “Big Papi” Ortiz. Good thing he’s not a horse, or it would be “off to the glue factory with him.” My first thought was that I was surprised to see he’s only 33; he’s one of these guys who seems like […]
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Brought to you by the folks who produce the Sports-reference sites. The site basically consists of links to lists category. There’s no commentary here, but it’s still a fair source for basic publishers’ info. That said, the link to new releases is woefully inadequate, listing only 46 books and DVDs at this point, with a […]
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I have a copyright infringement issue. In describing the final weekend of the NFL regular season, the Dec. 29 digital issue Sporting News Today caries the headline “Crazy ’08.” Problem is, that title was already taken, by Cait Murphy in her excellent book about the Chicago Cubs. No doubt this was meant as an homage […]
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So if a Republican, conservative, and libertarian blog posts an entry about a baseball book, “it fits here.” And so they have with this brief item about Gary Moore’s Playing with the Enemy.
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Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman has been awarded the Seymour Medal as the best baseball history or biography of 2007. Also recognized as “finalists” were Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball by Norman Macht and Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line by Adrian Burgos, Jr. Author Lee Lowenfish will receive […]
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But the story on these books — Anatomy of Baseball, Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman, and Baseball’s Greatest Hit: The Story of Take Me Out to the Ball Game — did not appear in the Sunday Book Review section, but rather these Big Apple-centric titles appeared in “Reading New York” on May 11.
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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
* Book Review: Dropping the Ball
November 4, 2008
Bill Jordan of BaseballReflections.com critiques Dave Winfield’s “how-to-fix-it” title. Upshot: Overall, Winfield presents a very interesting argument and while some of his proposed bandages to this problem may be a bit much, especially at this time, he may be pointing the baseball world in the right direction. While his issues may have to take a […]
Tagged as: Dave Winfield, Dropping the Ball
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