Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Note: I started this entry quite a while ago but I doubt another story like this has been posted since then, so… It’s not enough that there are lists of the greatest baseball movies of all time. Now there’s one on “Ranking the 25 best baseball movie-quotes of all time” (my emphasis). Just like any […]
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♦ The Baseball Hall of Fame will hold a screening of Fielding Dreams: A Celebration of Baseball Scouts on Thursday, Jan. 18. “[T]his new documentary goes beyond moneyball [sic] and features dozens of interviews with some of the scouting legends of the game, including 5 scouts who helped build the 2023 World Series Champion Texas […]
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No, Michael Nussbaum never played professional baseball. Nor was he an executive or a coach on any level. So what’s the connection? Recognize him now? It’s a scene from Field of Dreams (1989) in which Ray Kinsella and his wife, Annie, attend a school meeting regarding book censorship (unfortunately still a topical issue today. Not […]
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A League of Their Own premiered more than 30 years ago. Ahead of my Bookshelf Conversation with Erin Carlson, author of No Crying in Baseball: The Inside Story of A League of Their Own — Big Stars, Dugout Drama, and a Home Run for Hollywood, I found several stories about the film that takes a […]
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A couple of movies on the horizon that until today I had not been aware of. Both are apparently based on true stories. The Saint of Second Chances is a Netflix production premiering on September 19 that goes over the career of Mike Veeck, son of Bill and a second generation “hustler.” But of course, […]
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The CASEY Award hits the “big 4-oh” Anniversary in 2022. “It seems only appropriate that we should wind up with such an outstanding field of contenders for the CASEY in this milestone year,” said Spitball Editor-in-Chief Mike Shannon. “I think the CASEYs demonstrated long ago that no other sport produces great literature, year in and […]
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The venerable actor who often played on both sides of the law passed away yesterday at the age of 83. Not mentioned among his many credits in The New York Times‘ obituary were his two baseball roles: Milwaukee Brewers a fictional manager Gus Panas in the 2004 feature film Mr. 3000 starring the late Bernie […]
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The character actor who played Chick Gandil in the classic baseball flick Field of Dreams died Nov. 17 at the age of 78 after a long battle with Parkinson’s. Gandil — a notorious member of the Black Sox — was not the only baseball figure LaFleur portrayed: he also appeared as Babe Ruth in The Sandlot. […]
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It’s a Wonderful Life is one of my favorite movies. I’ll watch the uninterrupted version whenever its on, although I can’t stand it when NBC airs it, turning it into a three hour snoozefest in order to get their current batch of TV series stars yakking about what the movie means to them, not to […]
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I was looking for a baseball movie to watch the other day and came across It Happened in Flatbush, (1942) which I confused with one of my favorites, It Happens Every Spring (1947). Amazingly, I had never seen Flatbush before so I gave it a shot, especially since it featured Lloyd Nolan, one of my […]
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Because what else is there to do, baseball-wise, besides read and watch movies? Via ScreenRant: According to Rotten Tomatoes, these are the top ten baseball flics. Here’s the criteria: It should be noted that only certified fresh movies are included, as some baseball films have high ratings but only a handful of reviews. Definition of […]
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These were the nicknames given to Paul and Lloyd Waner, brothers who played together for the Pittsburgh Pirates for many years during the 1930s. Funny, but Paul, who was an inch shorter than Lloyd, was the “Big” one, presumably in deference to his being the senior brother by three years. Why do I bring this […]
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I was at work the other day when a thought came to me as I was looking at codes for various articles of produce. Some background: Trader Joe’s has a wonderful policy of donating food that might not be up to “selective customers’ standards” (my term, not the store’s). Hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars […]
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I didn’t want to post these yesterday, given that Memorial Day should have a lock on “lest we forget,” at least on May 31st. I was saddened by the news that Rob Edelman, 70, passed away last week. He combined two of my favorite things — the national pastime and cinema — in one of […]
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I looked at a lot of video clips when writing about the recent passing of John Mahoney, the actor who played Kid Gleason, manager of the 1919 Chicago White Sox, in the film version of Eliot Asinof’s Eight Men Out. I was specifically looking for the courtroom scene but couldn’t find it. I did find […]
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I always get a kick out of finding reviews of baseball books in unlikely places. In this case, it’s actually kind of a natural, since this title cross multiple genres. Even though it touts itself as “The Essential Guide to Movies of the ’60s and ’70s,” CinemaRetro offers this piece on Richard Sandomir’s The Pride […]
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I was at work the other day and the conversation turned to movies. I talked about a recent bio-pic and one of my younger colleagues did not know what that was. I was kind of surprised but then realized, a) not everyone is a movie buff; b) a movie buff might not like bio-pics; c) […]
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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
