More on the Bookshelf

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(This profile was done when the Bookshelf appeared on the MLBLogs site. The sentiments remain the same.)

Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf

When you think about it, a Major League Baseball season is like a good book. It opens with an inviting scene from Spring Training or Opening Day. It grips you throughout and all but catches on fire from burning through the pages until you finally come to the final chapter and some team like the St. Louis Cardinals is discovered in the mysterious thinning pages. But books themselves are a rich part of the baseball lore, and new ones to behold next spring are being cranked out by publishers as we speak. Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf explores that side of the game, and we thank him for answering the Nine Questions as today’s featured Spheroid:

1. What are the best reasons that other baseball fans should visit your MLBlog?

Baseball has always enjoyed a rich literary tradition. More words have been written about the national pastime than all other sports combined. I wanted to share my interest with others wishing to learn more about the game. I’ve written about baseball books for more than a dozen years now. My reviews, interviews, and features have appeared in such publications as Baseball America, New York Sportscene, January Magazine, Mental Floss, Irish America, E Magazine, Elysian Fields Quarterly, and Nine, among others.

Tedwilliams2. Favorite team and why:

The first game I ever attended was a Mets-Pirates contest in 1966. Ever since then — love ’em or hate ’em — it’s been the Mets. Having familial roots in Montreal, I also have a soft spot for the Expos.

3. If your MLBlog were any baseball player past or present, who would he be and why?

Ted Williams had a legendary knowledge of the history of game. I humbly respond in his honor and memory.

4. How did you first hear about MLBlogs and why did you join The Show?

I’ve enjoyed the MLB.com site for years, and I’ve had a blog on another site for a few months. Once I discovered MLBlogs, I figured it would be a perfect marriage.

5. Favorite blogs of any kind, including at least one in the MLBlogosphere?

I enjoy media-related topics, so I like blogcritics.org, media.nationalreview.com, and Iwantmedia.com. As for MLBlogs — with all due respect, I don’t read those pertaining to individual teams or players. I’m more of a generalist, even though I’ve been a Mets fan since their early days and an Expos fans since their birth. I like sites like ATM: He Said, She Said, Curt Smith’s Voice of the Game, and Baseball in the Classroom, a blog from the Hall of Fame.

6. What is something not on your About page that MLBloggers should know about you?

I worked for 20 years in a job I hated until I became a writer for a weekly newspaper closer to home. Talk about paying your dues.

7. What is your favorite thing about blogging?

Keeps me out of bars.

8. Your most memorable Major League moment(s):

The time I took my father to his first ballgame. He was a hard-working guy from the “old country” and didn’t much care about sports, but he was happy to share that time with me.

9. Happiness is…

Elusive for some, easy for others . . . and all relative.