Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
♦ I’m including this piece just because I find it amusing. I hope the Brits don’t get all their baseball info like this. ♦ Who says fiction about the national pastime has to be confined to literature? Here’s a case of fictitious baseball merchandise. ♦ Dan Epstein, author of Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A […]
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(As opposed to the Dan Epstein who was the photographer for my daughter’s bat mitzva. But I digress) The author of Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging ’70s will appear at the Gallery Zeke, the Steelville Arts Council’s new fine arts gallery, which is set to […]
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I don’t know about you, but being the curmudgeon that I am, I have trouble with the folks who jump on the baseball bandwagon once the regular season is over. This ain’t the NBA or NHL, bud, where everyone gets into the playoffs so you don’t have to pay attention until there are just a […]
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♦ Baseball de World ran this review of Mike Shropshire’s Seasons in Hell. Upshot: “Overall, the story was a pleasure to read.” ♦ Here’s another review of the new Clint Eastwood project, Trouble with the Curve (“Predictable”). And one from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (“a by-the-book romantic comedy that has the usual ingredients.”) ♦ A mini-review […]
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Enjoyed reading a few … well, what to call them? They’re not exactly graphic novels since they deal with real-life figures.. Anyway… The first was 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente, which is described as a graphic novel on the dust cover. Written/drawn by Wilfred Santiago and published by Fantographic Books last year, this is […]
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♦ From the Tulsa World, this on on Robert Fitts’ Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan. Upshot: “It is very well-researched and a balanced account, but it occasionally threatens to sag under the weight of such details. Readers need not be fans of baseball to appreciate the sport […]
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♦ The Summer 2012 issue of Jewish Currents features a review by Cynthia Werthamer of Pitching in the Promised Land: A Story of the First and Only Season in the Israel Baseball League, by former IBL hurler Aaron Pribble. Upshot: “While Pribble’s book could do with less foreshadowing…, his retelling of the ups and downs […]
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* The New York Times published this review about Ballplayer: Pelotero, a film documentary about baseball in the Dominican Republic. Upshot: “Forget feel-good boys-of-summer tales. This film shows a shady business in which scouts and the teams they represent try to manipulate teenage players, and to some extent the players do some manipulating of their […]
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Maybe it’s just the sports new cycles, but it seems there was a lot of emphasis on how young many of this year’s All-Stars were, juxtaposed with Chipper Jones, who is probably making his last appearance in the summer classic. (Did anyone else think his locker room “pep talk” was uncomfortable and stagey?) It occurred […]
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Unique History, Photos & Statistics through 2010 for ALL Baseball Fans. Written and compiled by Joe Taxiera, 2011. 374 pages. Taxiera has certainly done yeoman’s work in assembling all of this minutiae/trivia from more than 1,000 websites and books and putting it into a comprehensive format. A dozen chapters offer all manner of information, beginning […]
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♦ The Wilmington Star News posted this review of James Bailey’s novel Bull Durham. Upshot: “The Greatest Show on Dirt will appeal to any hardcore reader of box scores who doesn’t mind the feel of wooden bleachers and isn’t put off by tobacco chaws.” ♦ This review of Robert Fitts’ Baseball, Espionage, & Assassination During […]
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♦ The Austin American Statesman posted this review of Lefty: An American Odyssey, the biography of an underrated hurler for the New York Yankees in the 1930s-earl 1940s. Upshot: “…”Lefty” charms not for the way it tells the story of a life but for the way it captures the way Gomez saw and experienced the […]
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TAOF is now in paperback, so I guess it’s time for another round of fawning articles. (I found it interesting when I saw it at my local Barnes and Noble: there was a “sticker” on the cover that declared: A New York Times Book review BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR It has obviously been designed […]
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These come from the New Books Network which features news on several different genres, including sports. These two, both by Bruce Berglund, feature interviews with Robert Fitts, author of Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan; Lee Congdon, author of Baseball and Memory: Winning, Losing, and Remembrances of Things […]
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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
Bits and pieces
July 10, 2012
* John Rocker‘s memoir is not exactly new but it’s still getting some buzz. Whether or not it’s good is besides the point. I think a lot of people want to know if he’s as big a train wreck as he came off in that Sports Illustrated piece in 1999. * Dennis Anderson sent me […]
Tagged as: John Rocker, Sports Illustrated
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