From the category archives:

Reviews from other sources

♦   Interesting piece on “20 facts you might not know about ‘Moneyball’” from Yardbarker.com. But, sorry, leading off with “The movie is based on a book?” Maybe I’m being overcritical, but come on, this is something you might not know? ♦ Another Yardbarker piece includes Cliff Murdoch Rookie of the Year), Teddy Cullinane (Bull Durham), […]

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From Forbes: “Vintage Baseball Volumes To Bring High Prices At Rare Books Fair.” From Valley News, which covers the Vermont/New Hampshire area: “Baseball odyssey: Book recounts summer of epic road trip.” From the Culpeper, VA Star Exponent: “Pete Hill: Black Baseball’s First Superstar features Culpeper Hall of Fame slugger In Publisher’s Weekly, author David Kelly […]

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Tom Hoffarth and I are kindred spirits. For more than a decade, the former sports columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News produced, among many other things, the great feature “30 books in 30 days”; here’s just one entry on it from the Bookshelf. As you can see, these were more than just book reviews, […]

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I’ve got a little list

July 20, 2022

Recently received The Lineup: Ten Books That Changed Baseball by Paul Aron. I first learned of this book when I was researching for a “Coming Down the Pike” entry; thankfully, it did not include the word “forever” (regular readers of this blog know my feelings about superlatives in titles). I was trying to find the […]

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Times marches on

June 17, 2022

One of these days I have to ask publicists, “what goes into getting a book reviewed in The New York Times” or something like the New York Review of Books? Numbers vary as to how many books are published every year. One figure I’ve seen puts it at 4,000,000, another more than 3,00,000 but that […]

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Historical Times

October 24, 2021

The New York Times Book Review section celebrates its 125th anniversary this year. As could be expected, they gathered some of the most influential books over the decades, including classics such as The Bell Jar, Ulysses, Roots, The Road, and How to Win Friends and Influence People. With the millions of books that have been […]

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Headnote: One of the thing I like about the Pandemic Baseball Book Club is that it’s a kind of “one stop shopping.” Instead of posting about various authors, projects, and events, all I’m doing here is cutting and pasting their weekly newsletter. Do take a moment to read the author Q&A. I find them particularly […]

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30-something

May 5, 2021

For years, I used to look forward to April not just for Opening Day (when it actually started in April and not the end of March), but for Tom Hoffarth’s annual “30 books in 30 days” feature in the Los Angeles Daily News. Hoffarth doesn’t just review the books, but adds links to related topics […]

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Received my review copy of The Captain: A Memoir, by David Wright and Anthony Dicomo. Look for my critique on Bookreporter.com in the near future. I offered my initial thoughts on the book — which was released today — in a Baseball Best-Seller entry a couple of weeks ago. Here’s what the latest (monthly) issue […]

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I have a little list

April 30, 2020

This would have happened anyway, to a degree, late March and April being the time when the media begins to offers lists of new and worthy baseball titles being released. But with a lot of us having extra time on our hands, the collections are not limited to just those books coming out in 2020. […]

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The Brad-y Bunch

April 27, 2020

As you know, I sometimes put together a “Review Roundup” or “Bits and Pieces” entry, collecting a number of items about baseball books, etc. This time I’m devoting the post to a single author/book: Brad Balukjian and The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife, which is getting quite the raves. […]

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♦ Matt Christopher’s The Kid Who Only Hit Homers is being made into a made-for-TV movie. ♦ “Keith Law Discusses His Move to The Athletic, the 2020 MLB Draft And His New Book ‘The Inside Game’,” from The Big Lead. ♦ From Baseball America, “Buzz Saw Gives 2019 Nationals Their Proper Due” ♦From the Chicago […]

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I don’t usually advertise “the competition,” but in this time of crisis we all have to pull together. And since I usually don’t talk much about baseball fiction I figured, “why not let them do the work for me?” So submitted for your interest and enjoyment, here’s an episode of Effectively Wild, the podcast component […]

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At the Movies…

February 27, 2020

Sometimes I get grief when I complain about the quality of baseball films. My friends say I’m being too hard because I know and expect too much. In the words of that great philosopher, Steve Martin But I came across this on Youtube and thought it was pretty cool: Joc Pederson, Justin Turner, and Ferris, […]

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The recent baseball cover of The New Yorker reminded me that it’s been a while since we last saw a piece by the venerable Roger Angell, one of the people I would dearly love to have as a guest for a Bookshelf Conversation. But give the man a break, as Wendy Parker, host of the […]

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April in July

July 24, 2019

Yeah, I know it’s supposed to be “Christmas in July.” Well, maybe this is both. Totally neglected to mark Tom Hoffarth‘s annual “30-in-30” baseball book reviews, which he had been doing for several years while with the Los Angeles Daily News. Like me, however, Hoffarth was a victim of journalism crush and was downsized from […]

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… but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” My wife an I recently attended several movies at our local film festival, once of which was Late Night, the new Mindy Kaling/Emma Thomson comedy, which has received glowing reviews from some major sources. Long story short, I hated it. I found […]

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As a pretentious faux-intellectual, I’m always interested in books that combine philosophy with the national pastime. How cool, then, to come across Infinite Baseball: Notes from a Philosopher at the Ballpark, by Alva Noë, a professor at Berkeley. I’m switching between the print edition and audio book and quite enjoying it; look for a “Bookshelf […]

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Haven’t done one of these in a while… I’ve long said that The Lords of the Realm was one of the underrated baseball books of all time. Apparently Ben Lindbergh (The MVP Machine: How Baseball’s New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players and The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild […]

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Haven’t done one of these in a while. Of course haven’t done much of anything in a while, so… From the NWItimes.com site, (Munster, IN) this review of Joe Maddon’s Try Not to Suck. From the Lincoln Journal Star, this review of Donald Hall’s posthumously-published memoir, A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety. And one […]

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