A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast […]
In my former job, I enjoyed a long enough commute that I was able to listen to podcasts every day: Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, On the Media, Fresh Air, Extra Hot Great (on which I was once a guest contributor for a segment on Deadwood), to name a few. Nowadays it takes me less […]
Tagged as:
baseball podcasts
In this digital age, deciding to bring forth an actual print publication takes some cajones. Baseball magazines have come and gone. Back when I was growing up, there were a slew of them. Gone are such classics as The Elysian Fields Quarterly: The Baseball Review. And does anyone out there remember Dugout: Baseball Beyond the Boxscore or […]
Tagged as:
Austin Stahl,
Baseball magazines,
Bookshelf Conversation
Continuing on our theme of celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the “Miracle in Flushing,” we catch up with Wayne Coffey, author of They Said It Couldn’t Be Done: The ’69 Mets, New York City, and tew Most Astounding Season in Baseball History. The last time we spoke with Coffey, it was for his work on […]
Tagged as:
Gary Cohen,
New York Mets,
Wayne Coffey,
World Series
Full disclosure: Bryan Hoch and I go back a long way, although it’s one of those internet relationships in which you rarely, if ever, get to meet the people you befriend online, regardless of how long you’e been in touch. One of the first freelance jobs (emphasis on the “free”) I had was providing book reviews for his […]
Don’t get me wrong. I love all my guests. But once in a while I get to chat with someone outside the usual baseball literary mainstream. That was the case with Scott Simon, host of NPR’s Weekend Edition. Yes, Simon, a lifetime Cubs fan, had previously published two books on baseball among his oeuvre: Home […]
In recent days, I’ve notice that a number of new baseball titles have “updated” nostalgia. By that I mean the subjects of these books are more recent than they used to be. Case in point, Scott Turbow’s Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s. When did the 1970s become the “new” […]
Tagged as:
Leo Durocher,
Paul Dickson
Haven’t done one of these in a long time so here goes: From the New York Sportsday website, a review of A Baseball Guy: Former Kansas City Royals Farmhand, Scout, and Major League Coach Takes You Inside the Game He Loves, by Guy Hansen and Tom Gresham. From Lookout Landing, a Seattle Mariners-centric site, this […]
Tagged as:
Cleveland Indians,
George F. Will,
Guy Hansen,
Kansas City Royals,
Mickey Cochrane,
Pittsburgh Pirates,
Seinfeld
NOTE: I have been posting these things long enough now that a few have commented that the introductory section isn’t necessary anymore. But I’m leaving it in because, to paraphrase Joe DiMaggio when asked why he played so hard all the time, there may be people who’ve never read the best-seller entries before. So on […]
Tagged as:
Bernard Malamud,
Brian Kenny,
independent leagues,
instructionals,
Lenny Dykstra,
managing,
Michael Lewis,
Mike Mathany,
Moneyball,
Oakland Athletics,
Pitching,
St. Louis Cardinals,
Tim Kurkjian
Here’s a little departure from the usual conversation in which I chat with authors, filmmakers, et al. During one of my regular visits to Amazon to see what’s coming down the pike, I came across Stealing Games: How John McGraw Transformed Baseball with the 1911 New York Giants by Maury Klein. Now normally I would […]
Tagged as:
George Gibson
W2W4 is shortspeak for “what to watch for.” This can refer to movies, TV, or just about any pop culture event coming in the future. After reading this piece by actor/writer Ian Michael Black in the Nov. 22 NY Times Sunday Book Review I got to thinking about how we listen to what used to […]
Tagged as:
Philip Roth,
Scott Brick,
Stan Musial,
Ted Williams,
The Great American Novel
Since I posted the first of these on a Thursday, which is known on social media as a time of reflection, I thought to make it a regular thing under this rubric. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get. (Actually, I never understood […]
Tagged as:
baseball and politics,
Baseball Cards,
Baseball Propsectus,
Bill Veeck,
Brooklyn Dodgers,
Carl Mays,
Chad Harbach,
Detroit Tigers,
Ebbets Field,
Jim Abbot,
Josh Lewin,
Molly Lawless,
Paul Dickson,
Ray Chapman,
St. Louis Cardinals,
Texas Rangers,
The Art of Fielding,
Tim Wendell
Since I posted the first of these on a Thursday, which is known on social media as a time of reflection, I thought to make it a regular thing under this rubric. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get. (Actually, I never understood […]
Since I posted the first of these on a Thursday, which is known on social media as a time of reflection, I thought to make it a regular thing under this rubric. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get. (Actually, I never understood […]
Tagged as:
Arnold Hano,
Baseball Cards,
baseball fiction,
BookPage,
Gary Moore,
Jerry Reuss
Another in a series of feeble attempts to catch up on older items. You will forgive the possible occasional duplication from previous entries. First off, well, this is kind of insulting to baseball and books. * Ed Lucas received a lot of attention for his recent memoir, and rightly so. I had a great conversation […]
Tagged as:
baseball fiction,
Bergino Baseball Clubhouse,
Bill Pennington,
Billy Martin,
Charlie O'Brien,
Doug Wedge,
Gary Cieradkowski,
Jack Zanger,
Mike Matheny,
minor leagues,
National Public Radio,
New York Yankees,
sabermetrics,
Sandy Alderson,
Steve Kettmann,
W. P. Kinsella,
Wins Above Replacement
As much as I love listening to interview with authors, it gets to a point where they’re pretty much the same. I don’t know whether that’s a function of publicists sending out “talking points,” ostensibly to make the hosts’ jobs easier. I don’t know if the interviewers actually read all the stuff they get in […]
The “poet laureate”/PA announcer for the Red Sox was the guest for the “Not My Job” segment of last week’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, which was broadcast from the Wang Theater in the City Performing Arts Center in Boston. You can read the transcript or listen to Flavin — along with host Peter Sagal, […]
Tagged as:
Boston Red Sox,
Dick Flavin,
NPR,
Peter Sagal,
Wait Wait Don't Tell Me
NEW STUFF: I have been posting these things long enough now that a few have commented that the introductory section isn’t necessary anymore. But I’m leaving it in because, to paraphrase Joe DiMaggio when asked why he played so hard all the time, there may be people who’ve never read the best-seller entries before. So… […]
Tagged as:
Billy Martin,
Derek Jeter,
Fantasy baseball,
John Feinstein,
Michael Lewis,
Moneyball,
New York Mets,
New York Yankees,
Oakland As,
San Francisco Giants,
Sandy Alderson,
Steve Kettmann,
Ted Williams
Jayson Stark, the long-time columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, is a senior writer for ESPN.com. In addition to his writing, he appears on radio and television, including SportsCenter, ESPNews, Baseball Tonight, and a weekly segment during baseball season with WHB 810 in Kansas City. He is another in a pool of veteran scribes who has […]
Tagged as:
ESPN,
Jayson Stark
is available on Amazon.com,
W2L4
November 24, 2015
W2W4 is shortspeak for “what to watch for.” This can refer to movies, TV, or just about any pop culture event coming in the future. After reading this piece by actor/writer Ian Michael Black in the Nov. 22 NY Times Sunday Book Review I got to thinking about how we listen to what used to […]
Tagged as: Philip Roth, Scott Brick, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, The Great American Novel
{ Comments on this entry are closed }