Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
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By the way, it’s still winter so why aren’t we hearing snow-themed songs anymore? “Winter Wonderland” and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” among others, are not “holiday” songs, per se, so they’d still be valid. Just sayin’. Thought I saw my first “annual” at the bookstore last week, but it was a fantasy publication, so it [...]
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Sports Illustrated‘s Tom Verducci considers one of the questions I’ve been wondering about for a long time: Why do teams keep hiring the same old managers rather than give someone new a chance? I’ve often thought of baseball in terms of television shows: you keep getting the same actors in different roles though similar roles. [...]
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Well, the Mets were official eliminated from the pennant race (in April) last night. So what’s the connection with one of the classic film gems of all time? Jock Whitney played a major role in bringing GWTW to the screen. According to IMDB.com, Whitney was the major investor in Selznick International Inc., putting up $870,000 [...]
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Can you figure out the connection between Gone with the Wind and the New York Mets? Answer tomorrow (or when I get around to it).
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Today’s Wall Street Journal ran this extensive article about the differences (and similarities) between Met and Yankee fans. I took a brief on-line interactive survey, which rendered me — incorrectly — a fan of the Bronx bombers. (Only 14 people took the poll, which indicates that WSJ readers have better things to do with their [...]
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Great. Something else for Mets and Yankees fans to argue about. Now you can sing along. And I couldn’t help but add this one. A song about the Washington Nationals? How retro.
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And Other Tales from the Edge of Baseball Fandom, by Emma Span (Villard, 2010) As much as I love baseball, there are times when I take a step back and wonder, “What am I doing with this nonsense? Surely, there are better ways to spend my time and energies.” And at the risk of being [...]
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Or Johan, or David, or Gary? I don’t get it: when the Yankees lose their season opener — a night game that ends late; nice big picture of Granderson after his first home run in the pinstripes — they make the front page. When the Mets win — an impressive afternoon affair — they don’t [...]
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The MLB Network isn’t the only entity examining “30 teams in 30 days.” I participated in a couple of “round table” discussions with the good folks at Inside Pulse Sports recently about what the 2010 season might hold for the Mets and Nationals, my two favorite teams. You can read the Mets piece here and [...]
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From today’s NY Times: “A Piece of Mets History, Rewritten in Stone” Doesn’t anyone look at these things? Your email:
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It seems that offering free PDFs as a way to garner attention for one’s website/blog/publication is rapidly gaining favor. POD (Print on demand) offers the author/publisher to produce only the amount of copies needed, rather than kill an bunch of trees for nothing. A few weeks ago, SABR published its Emerald Guide to Baseball as [...]
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By Bob Mitchell. Kensington, 2008. As a lover of the TV show Lost and sci-fi in general, I always welcome the chance to mix the genre with baseball (see, Baseball Fantastic, edited by W.P. Kinsella). So it was with a sense of joy when Bob Mitchell’s Once Upon a Fastball swerved from a regular work [...]
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By Bob Mitchell. Kensington, 2008. As a lover of the TV show Lost and sci-fi in general, I always welcome the chance to mix the genre with baseball (see, Baseball Fantastic, edited by W.P. Kinsella). So it was with a sense of joy when Bob Mitchell’s Once Upon a Fastball swerved from a regular work [...]
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This afternoon, the New York Mets signed Chris Coste, author of Hey…I’m just the catcher: An inside look at a Northern League season from behind the plate and The 33-Year-Old Rookie: My 13-Year Journey from the Minor Leagues to the World Series. A popular player with the fans, Coste, now 36, spent 3 1/2 years [...]
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(Full disclosure: I contributed a chapter to The Miracle Has Landed: The Amazin’ Story of How the 1969 Mets Shocked the World.) On the Black, a Mets-centric blog, featured a three part series on this new collaborative effort edited by Matthew Silverman and Ken Samelson. Part 1 Part 2 (an interview with Silverman) Part 3 [...]
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Kerel Cooper, who hosts OntheBlack, (“NY Mets Video Blog Providing News, Opinions and Analysis”), has a thought that applies to the entire organization: Reading is FUNdamental. In this video, he suggests the Mets’ would do well to devote part of their off-season (their long off-season) to boning up on the game via these titles: Getting [...]
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You know the season is over for your team when the newspapers publish a feature article…and conclude with a brief graph of two about the game. Like today. The New York Times printed this piece on Daniel Murphy approaching a club record for doubles (stop the presses!) and winding up with a “and, oh, by [...]
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The Mets That Were, by Leonard Shecter, Dial Press, 1970. It is generally accepted that Shea Stadium was not one of the classic ballparks in the long history of the national pastime. Yet more than 56,000 were on hand for the final game on Sept. 28, 2008. On the other hand, when the same Mets [...]
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In the form of Rob Kirkpatrick‘s new book, 1969: The Year Everything Changed. Boomers will get a kick out of this piece of nostalgia, which covers the bad (Vietnam, the Manson murders, Days of Rage) as well as the good (Woodstock, Easy Rider, Wody Allen). But for our purposes, it’s all about the game. Kirkpatrick, [...]
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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.
Turning Two: My Journey to the Top of the World and Back with the New York Mets, by Bud Harrelson with Phil Pepe
Deadball: A Metaphysical Baseball Novel
Congratulations to Scott P. of Rochester, NY, winner of the most recent Facebook Fan drawing, Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game
Next up: Hit by Pitch: Ray Chapman, Carl Mays and the Fatal Fastball
Tell your friends!
My article on Yankees Fantasy Camp appears in the current issue of Broadside Bombers.
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:
Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball
Amazingly sensitive and surprisingly literate effort by Dickey and Coffey. A
Turning Two: My Journey to the Top of the World and Back with the New York Mets
A serviceable, nostalgic look at the Amazin's in their heyday. B
Calico Joe
Grisham's first baseball novel is emotional, if a bit predictable. B
What I'm reading now
Extra Innings
Damn Yankees: Twenty-Four Major League Writers on the World's Most Loved (and Hated) Team
What's next:
Butterfly Winter
74 | Unique Visitors |
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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…
August 23, 2010 · 0 comments
You know the Mets are out of it when The New York Times no longer prints detailed Stories about the games, even the victories. Friday’s paper carried just nine paragraphs about the previous night’s 3-2 loss to the Astros. Saturday’s edition (at least the one we received by delivery): seven following the Amazins’ 7-2 break-out [...]
Tagged as: New York Mets, New York Times
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