Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
Posts tagged as:
Note: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish writing one). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast one […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Headnote: I’ve decided to bow to the times and include separate lists for e-books and audio books. Be aware that while many titles also appear in print versions, pretty much anyone can produce an e-book these days, so I’m not going to comment at all about the quality. As far as the audio goes, I’m […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Murray Chass weighs in on Terry Francona’s new memoir The Red Sox Years (written by Dan Shaughnessy). Russ Smith contributed this review of the same book on Baseball Musings. Speaking about managerial memoirs that raise an eyebrow, Mike Reuther, author the baseball novels Return to Dead City and Nothing Down, posts the occasional book review. […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
to Dick Williams, born this date in 1929. Williams published a memoir/autobio No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Life in Hardball (with Bill Plashcke) in 1990. He was also one of the baseball personalities interviewed in Fay Vincent’s latest collection, It’s What’s Inside the Lines That Counts : Baseball Stars of the 1970s and 1980s […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
A History and Analysis of Performance in the Major Leagues, 1876-2008, by Chris Jaffe (McFarland). A review of the book appears on Amazin’ Avenue (“an unofficial New York Mets blog”). Upshot: It all makes for a very interesting read, especially considering how tragically ignored managers are in most baseball literature and analysis. If the Mets […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Jon Weisman, who blogs about the Dodgers for the Los Angeles Times, gives a sample of Chris Jaffe’s Evaluating Baseball Managers: A Comprehensive History and Performance Analysis, 1876-2008 (McFarland) as it pertains to his home team. Upshot: The book, as a whole, “is going to be as big as it sounds.”
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Cubs’ skipper Lou Pienlla and Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon were named managers of the year for 2008. Pinella published Sweet Lou, written with Maury Allen in 1986. He’s got a new one coming out next year from St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne. So can it be long before Maddon has one, too? Managers whose teams […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
How will the Mets (and history) treat Jerry Manuel> The “interim” manager took over for the beleaguered Willie Randolph early this season, when the team was hovering under the .500 mark. Yes, Randolph was the leader of a bunch of underachievers, but almost everyone agrees that the way in which his dismissal was handled was, […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
A lot has been written over the last couple of days (in the New York area at least) about the firing of Mets manager Willie Randolph. It’s not so much that he was fired as much as how the deed was done. How terrible, the sports pundits cried, to do it in the middle of […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
in 1969, Ted Williams makes his managerial debut in front of President Nixon and a crowd of 45,000 at Washington’s RFK Stadium. ‘Tricky Dick’s’ Senators are defeated by the Yankees, 8-4. (Thanks nationalpastime.com) Williams was the subject of a 1970 book, What a Baseball Manager Does, by Roy Hoopes.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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
