Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
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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I was flipping through the dial and chanced upon Strategic Air Command, one of the many movies aired today in honor of Veteran’s Day. This one features Jimmy Stewart, one of my favorite actors, in the lead role of Dutch Holland, a star player for the St. Louis Cardinals who served in World War Two, […]
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Haven’t done one of these in awhile, but here we go… This whole unpleasant business with Charlottesville has opened a can of worms when it comes to deciding which people who had previously been recognized by way of statues, parks, and roadways should have those honors stripped. Case in point: Tom Yawkey, former owner of the Boston […]
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The New York Times obituary says the late actor was best known for his role as a southern sheriff in a couple of James Bond movies. Not for me. For me, Clifton was best known for his role as the penurious Charles A. Comiskey, owner of the Chicago White Sox, in Eight Men Out (which […]
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In addition to the regular reasons — the signaling of the start of summer, the lazy evenings, the smell of the grass, etc. — I love the beginning of the baseball season because of the previews in the newspapers. These have often come in the form of supplements of substantial length and breadth and tailored, […]
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There’s a link in Graham Womack’s piece on The Sporting News site that will take you to a similar ranking of “the best baseball movies of all time.” I wouldn’t have raised a peep if they substituted “favorite” for “best,” but you know how I feel about superlatives; I’m not going to let this go […]
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A while back I wrote about The Quitter (twice, in fact) which, IMHO, is one of the worst “baseball movies” ever made. I put that in quotes because, of course, it’s not really about baseball. They could have just have easily made the lead character the proprietor of a laundromat. But researching one baseball movie […]
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♦ The Minnesota Spokesman Record, an African-America newspaper, posted this review of They Played for the Love of the Game: Untold Stories of Black Baseball in Minnesota, published by Frank M. White. ♦ The Lincoln (NE) Journal Star provided this piece on Roger Angell‘s memoir, This Old Man: All in Pieces. I still maintain this […]
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Spoiler alert: This entry will discuss the end of The Quitter, which I blogged about in the previous entry. On the other hand, I consider this as saving you a few bucks and/or 90 minutes of your valuable time. You’re welcome. Against my better judgment, I watched The Quitter to its stunning conclusion. I have […]
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As I said before, I’ll watch just about any movie that has baseball as one of the key words in its description. But that doesn’t mean I’ll watch it ’til the end. Life’s too short. I came across The Quitter by accident when I checked what my local public TV station was airing for the […]
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I’ll watch anything that has to do with baseball at least once, regardless of the reviews or that it has no “star-power” actors. Some are dreadful from any number of angles (writing, acting, theme), so I didn’t have great expectations for Where Hope Grows, a 2014 release that certainly didn’t come to any of the […]
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Next to baseball and books (and, of course, baseball books), I enjoy learning about what goes on behind the scenes in movies. That’s why I enjoy the I Was There Too podcast hosted by Matt Gourley, which features interviews with actors who may not have been the stars of the films in which they appeared, […]
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Fastball, the acclaimed new documentary film, celebrates the game’s signature delivery and headlines the 10th Annual Baseball Hall of Fame Film Festival Sept. 25-27 in Cooperstown. All films will be shown in the Hall of Fame’s Bullpen Theater. Produced by National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Board member Thomas Tull (the producer of 42), […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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And, let’s not forget Anthony Perkins. These three popular actors made baseball films that were memorable for one reason or another and none of them displayed an ounce of athletic talent portraying, respectively, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and Jim Piersall. Sure there were others who probably should have turned down such demanding roles, but those were […]
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Robin Williams died Monday, in an apparent case of suicide. The outpouring of grief and condolences would probably still be going on if not for the short attention span of an entertainment-gobbling public that has diverted their thoughts to yesterday’s passing of movie icon Lauren Bacall. To be honest, I found Williams a kind of […]
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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
Throwback Thursday (aka, links dump)
August 13, 2015
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: A League of Their Own, baseball fiction, Baseball Prospectus, Bookreporter.com, Charley Rosen, Hardball Times, Irish baseball, Raiders of the Lost Ark, sabermetrics, women in baseball
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