Mickey Mantle. Sandy Koufax. Two heroic symbols of the Boomer generation. Two flawed figures, one of his own accord, one of poor luck. Jane Leavy has turned both of their stories into best-selling biograophies. So what does she do for an encore? Why not another icon, who wrestled with his own demons, although it didn’t […]
Tagged as:
Babe Ruth,
Jane Leavy,
Mickey Mantle,
Sandy Koufax
The next Moneyball? * A few “inside baseball (business)” pieces coming up: In Pursuit of Pennants: Baseball Operations from Deadball to Moneyball by long-time SABR members Mark Armour and Daniel Leviit. John Pessah adds to this sub-genre with The Game: Inside the Secret World of Major League Baseball’s Power Brokers. Lonnie Wheeler’s Intangiball: The Subtle […]
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baseball business,
Boston Red Sox,
Branch Rickey,
Brooklyn Dodgers,
Cal Ripken Jr.,
Glenn Burke,
Harvey frommer,
Jackie Robinson,
Joe Pepitone,
Mickey Mantle,
Moneyball,
New York Yankees,
Pete Golenbock
Rather than lay it all out there, I thought I would divvy this up into smaller, more manageable bites, so here’s Part 2. * denotes items of particular interest (to me, at any rate). History One of my bugaboos has long been titles such as The Nats and the Grays: How Baseball in the Nation’s […]
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Chicago Cubs,
Hank Greenberg,
Joe DiMaggio,
Mickey Mantle,
New York Yankees,
Pete Gray,
World War II
Sure, we all know how rare the Honus Wagner and Mickey Mantle rookie cards are. And how valuable if they’re in pristine condition. How many times have we denied ourselves the pleasure of just handling the cardboard, worried about bending the corners or leaving finger prints? Back in the seventh grade, I did a project […]
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Baseball Cards,
Honus Wagner,
Mickey Mantle
(Note: My review of Allen Barra’s latest appears on Bookreporter.com, and reprinted for your convenience below, with a few additional comments.) Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris may have been “the M&M boys” for a summer or two in the early 1960s, but Mantle, aka the “Commerce Comet,” and the “Say Hey Kid” (Willie Mays) were […]
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Allen Barra,
Jane Leavy,
Mickey Mantle,
Willie Mays
Overlooked this one: Former NY Mets favorite RonSwoboda contributed a review of Allen Barra’s Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays, the Parallel Lives of Baseball’s Golden Age to the New York Times Sunday Book section on June 2. (One reader wrote to complain that Swoboda didn’t mention Duke Snider in his article. Perhaps, but the […]
Tagged as:
Allen Barry,
Mickey Mantle,
Robert Weintraub,
Tampa Bay Rays,
Willie Mays
The Huntington News (WV) published this review about Acre, a baseball “fable.” Upshot: “I’m not going to give away the plot points, other than to say to know Acre is to love him.” The Minneapolis Star Tribune posted this about Allen Barra’s Willie and Mickey. The Charlotte Post and Courier ran this review of Larry […]
Tagged as:
Mickey Mantle,
Willie Mays
So much for the free access of information. You can read the opening of the Boston Globe‘s review of Allen Barra’s Mickey and Willie: Mantle and Mays, the Parallel Lives of Baseball’s Golden Age. Fortunately, there are other sources that are a bit moe “generous,” including the Chicago Tribune, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and New York […]
Tagged as:
Allen Barra,
Jeremy Affeldt,
Mickey Mantle,
Robert Weintraub,
To Stir a Movement,
Willie Mays
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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Buzz Bissinger,
Hank Greenberg,
John Rosengren,
John Sexton,
Mickey Mantle
Besides my own book, there are some titles I’m really looking forward to this season. Among them: Keepers of the Game: When the Baseball Beat was the Best Job on the Paper by Dennis D’Agostino The Victory Season: The End of World War II and the Birth of Baseball’s Golden Age by Robert Weintraub Mickey […]
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Allen Barra,
Baseball during World War II,
Doc Gooden,
Filip Bondy,
Ira Berkow,
Mickey Mantle,
Mike Piazza,
New York Mets,
Willard Mullin,
Willie Mays
Greg Spira passed along this link to an NJ.com review of five New York-centric books, including (with a “symbolic” thumbs up-thumbs down): 1961: The Inside Story of the Maris-Mantle Home Run Chase, by Phil Pepe (-) Donnie Baseball: The Definitive Biography of Don Mattingly, by Mike Shalin (-) Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The […]
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Derek Jeter,
Don Mattingly,
Joe DiMaggio,
John Thorn,
Mickey Mantle,
New York,
New York Yankees,
Roger Maris
From Abebooks.com, a new twist on the old theme of losing one’s prized baseball card: Using it as a place keeper but forgetting to remove it when selling the volume to the local used book store. THE SPORTING “A Mickey Mantle rookie baseball card. It was the original 1952 Topps #311 baseball card and not […]
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Baseball card,
Mickey Mantle,
Sandy Koufax
by Jerome Charyn. Yale University Press, 2011. * * * This year marks the 70th anniversary of one of those sports records still considered to be unbreakable: Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. While most of the books over the years — especially those written in a long-ago time, when athletes were always heroic rather than […]
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Jerome Charyn,
Joe DiMaggio,
Marilyn Monroe,
Mickey Mantle,
Ted Williams
The legendary “Bum” died today at the age of 84. Here‘s the Richard Goldstein obituary from the NY Times. Guarantee there will be front page mention of this tomorrow. Snider collaborated on his autobiography, The Duke Of Flatbush, with Bill Gilbert in 1988. Other titles include: The Duke Snider Story, by Winehouse (1964) Duke Snider, […]
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Duke Snider,
Mickey Mantle,
New York,
Willie Mays
“M” is truly an amazing initial for Hall of Famers, isn’t it? Mays, Mantle, Musial, Marichal, , McCovey, Mathewson, no to mention managers such as McCarthy, Mack and McGraw Connie Mack (Manager; inducted 1937) My 66 Years in the Big Leagues, by Mack (1950) Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball, Macht (2007) The […]
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Biz Mackey,
Christy Mathewson,
Connie Mack,
John McGraw,
Juan Marichal,
Mickey Mantle,
Negro Leagues,
Stan Musial,
Willie Mays,
Willie McCovey
The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Feb 4, at 10 a.m. Title Rank General Baseball Prospectus 2011 1 Baseball America 2011 Prospect Handbook: The 2011 Expert Guide to Baseball Prospects and MLB Organization Rankings (Baseball America Prospect Handbook) 2 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis (Kindle […]
Tagged as:
Baseball America,
Dirk Hayhurst,
Hardball Times Baseball Annual,
Jane Leavy,
Jim Bouton,
Mickey Mantle,
Moneyball,
The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran
The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Jan. 28 at noon. Title Rank General Baseball Prospectus 2011 1 Baseball America 2011 Prospect Handbook: The 2011 Expert Guide to Baseball Prospects and MLB Organization Rankings (Baseball America Prospect Handbook) 2 The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood, by Jane […]
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Baseball America,
Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back,
Hardball Times Baseball Annual,
Jane Leavy,
Jim Bouton,
Mickey Mantle,
Moneyball,
The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran
Jane Leavy played to a full house in October at the Yogi Berra Museum and learning Center in Little Falls. Photos courtesy Andrew Mordzynski. Part 2 http://www.ronkaplansbaseballbookshelf.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/RKBBLeavy21.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Tagged as:
Jane Leavy,
Mickey Mantle