Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Michigan Live posted this review on John Rosengren’s new biography, Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes. Upshot: “Rosengren…lovingly describes the devotion of American Jews to a man who overcame harassment and flat feet to become not just a baseball star, but an inspiration to his people.” Here’s something you don’t see everyday: a British book [...]
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The AZ Snakepit, a Diamondbacks’-centric blog, posted this about John Sexton’s Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game. Upshot: “Overall it’s a fine baseball book that is interesting most because it examines baseball in a manner more critical than most. The average baseball book is no better than a collection of trivia, [...]
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Lest we forget: 1991 – Cool Papa Bell, Negro League outfielder; Hall of Famer (b. 1903) Cool Papa Bell (Baseball Hall of Famers of the Negro Leagues), by Shaun McCormack, Rosen Publishing Group, 2002. On this date: 1919 – Christy Mathewson, back from the World War I, rejoins the New York Giants as pitching coach [...]
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Lest we forget: 1950 – Kiki Cuyler, outfielder; All-Star, Hall of Famer (b. 1898) Hazen “Kiki” Cuyler: A Baseball Biography, by Ronald Waldo, McFarland 2012. 2011 – Chuck Tanner, outfielder, manager (b. 1928) Chuck Tanner’s baseball playbook, by Tanner with Jim Enright, Rutledge/Mayflower Book, 1981 Also on this date: 1985 – Minnesota Twins first baseman [...]
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Literary birthday greetings: 1895 – Babe Ruth, outfielder; All-Star, Hall of Famer (d. 1948) Previous Babe Ruth birthday entry. Lest we forget: 2007 – Lew Burdette, pitcher; All-Star (b. 1926) Lew Burdette of the Braves, by Gene Schoor, Putnam, 1960. Also on this date: 1934: New York sportswriter and broadcaster Ford Frick is named the [...]
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The news cycle being what it is, this will probably be a moot point by the time you many of you read this, but the opening page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website is full of stories, videos, and photos of Stan Musial, who passed away yesterday at the age of 92. Here’s the New [...]
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Sure enough, the papers are full of stories about the lack of new inductees by the BBWAA for this year’s Hall of Fame inductions. Perhaps The NY Times did it best: Knowing how “expensive” it is to waste “real estate,” I’d say that’s a pretty bold move. It’s either an editorial comment of some sort [...]
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Not sure if this is surprising or not, but no one was elected into the Hall of Fame today. Don’t know how long this will stay live, but here’s the official word from the Baseball Writers Association of America website. You can bet dollars to donuts that there will be scores of columns, both in [...]
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The author of one of the most controversial baseball biographies died yesterday at the age of 62. Cramer published Joe DiMaggio : The Hero’s Life in 2000. Many fans of the Yankee Clipper were outraged as the author painted the legend in an unusually unflattering light. DiMaggio was cheap, ungracious, a womanizer (sometimes bordering on [...]
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I was tooling around the TV dial last night, killing time between the end of the Redskins-Seahawks game and Downtown Abbey (’cause that’s how I roll), and hit on a discussion on the MLB Network about statistics. I believe the show was Clubhouse Confidential and the guests were former manager Larry Bowa and stats guru [...]
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* Gone but not forgotten: The Baseball Hall of Fame has some Montreal Expos memorabilia on display. * Not sure if the ship has sailed on this, but The Book: Playing The Percentages in Baseball is on a deep discount (I believe it’s 50 percent) “for a limited time.” * Bruce Markusen posted another entertaining [...]
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The man responsible — for better or worse — for the astronomical salaries baseball players receive these days, died this morning at the age of 95. He had been battling cancer for more than a year. Miller was one of the most powerful men in sports during his tenure as head of the players union. [...]
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♦ Bill Jordan at Baseball Reflections posted this on The Baseball Hall of Shame: The Best of Blooperstown. Upshot: “With the book being built around blurbs, instead of lengthy stories, it is a quick read and would be something that is easy to browse through. One might even call this a good book to read [...]
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is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com.
In my "day job," I'm the features and sports editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper. I'm also the editor of the Bibliography Committee Newsletter for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).
I did a piece on the award-winning cartoonist Arnold Roth and he was nice enough to "immortalize" me.
Congratulations to Charles P. of Long Island City, NY, winner of the most recent Facebook Fan drawing, The Might Have Been: A Novel
Next up: Long Shot
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My article on the later biographies of Babe Ruth appears in
My article on the Mets' 1969 post-season appears in
What I just read:
Southern League: A True Story of Baseball, Civil Rights, and the Deep South's Most Compelling Pennant Race
Well-intentioned, but somewhat disappointing in delivery of the intended message. B-.
What I'm reading now
Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays, the Parallel Lives of Baseball's Golden Age
First Impressions: Too soon to tell.
What I'm RE-reading now
Play for a Kingdom
What's next:
Gil Hodges: The Brooklyn Bums, the Miracle Mets, and the Extraordinary Life of a Baseball Legend
Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game
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