Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
By George Castle (Lyons Press) As per the Seattle Times. First LaRussa, then Torre, now Pinella? Upshot: “[R]eaders will find a different Piniella than the man who managed the Mariners to four postseason appearances.”
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Most of the annual previews are available as of this writing. I previously analyzed Beckett’s; here a more comprehensive look at the four I’ve purchased to date. Back in the day, the publisher printed only one cover. Now it’s easy to make one for every team or region. The examples here are for the New […]
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This item from NBCBayArea.com opines that the “charming” actress might have adverse affects on some of the maor legaue pitchers she’s dated. Haven’t read the book yet, but do we really need another celebrity telling us why we should love the game? As if their endorsement is powerful enough to sway those who heretofore had […]
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This year marks the 40th anniversary of the New York Mets’ first World Championship and since everyone loves a celebration, there are several new books marking that occasion in particular and the team in general, including: Shea Good Bye: The Untold Inside Story of the Historic 2008 Season, by Keith Hernandez and Matthew Silverman A […]
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Not quite a review, not quite an author profile, this piece from the Boston Herald is sort of a news story about the upcoming title. The focus starts with the altercation between Ramirez and Red Sox traveling secretary Jack McCormick, “the final nail in No. 24’s coffin in Boston.”
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What is it with all these confessions? First Jane Heller’s Confessions of a She-Fan, now this? Forgive my cynicism, but was this book really penned by the actor herself? So it would seem, since there’s no collaborative reference on the cover. Milano supposedly writes a blog on MLB.com (she also sells a line of baseball-themed […]
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From the Bleeding Cubbie Blue blog (say that three times fast). Upshot: One of the best things about this book is the large number of photos and drawings showing knuckleball grips — you’ll be surprised at how many different ones there are, and most of them don’t use knuckles at all, but grips with fingernails. […]
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by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci Doubleday The former manager of the New York Yankees — and one of its most successful — teams up with Sports Illustrated’s senior baseball writer for this unique and somewhat baffling presentation. Although Joe Torre gets top billing as the nominative author, the reader will get the impression that […]
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In a time when the print industry is succumbing to economic turmoils, you wonder if, in lieu of raises, Sports Illustrated isn’t offering to promote its writers’ books as a form of compensation. First it was Tom Verducci with The Yankee Years, excerpted on SI.com. He also used his on-line column to discuss the project. […]
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From our friend Greg Spira comes this link to LibraryJournal.com’s annual baseball feature. Among the usual share of biographies and memoirs, histories, and social commentaries are such themes as: Yet another biography about Yogi Berra, this one by homonymic author Allen Barra, and one on Walter O’Malley by Michael D’Antonio Ira Berkow’s bio of Lou […]
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What’s one more in-depth profile of a major star between friends? Here’s one about Manny Ramirez, who remains untainted with the steroids brush. ( Isn’t it terrible that pretty much any slugger from here on out will be looked at with one cocked eyebrow?) Becoming Manny: Inside the Life of Baseball’s Most Enigmatic Slugger, by […]
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According to an Associated Press story, …publication of Selena Roberts’ A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez has been moved up from May 19 to April 14 as scrutiny builds on the New York Yankees slugger after he acknowledged using banned substances from 2001-2003 while playing for the Texas Rangers. The item also notes that […]
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In an item on The New Yorker website, Ben McGrath reminds us that Jose Canseco, the author of Juiced and Vindicated reported on A-Rod’s juice use years ago, but no one wanted to believe him. Does that make Canseco a Cassandra? In other book news of special interest to New York fans: Don’t look for […]
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How many of us were aware that Selena Roberts of Sports Illustrated has a book on A-Rod published by Harper Collins due to be released in May? Here’s my cynicism coming through again: All the to-do about Torre’s book, written with Tom Verducci, another well-respected SI writer, comes out when there’s a lull in the […]
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So what do you think: will the reports of A-Rod on steroids help the sale of Joe Torre’s book? Not that it needs much in the way of a push, according to this piece in the New York Daily News. A suspicious person would wonder about the timing of the announcement. After all, it’s been […]
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New York newspapers devoted a lot of space to the return of Torre as he visits the Big Apple for his book tour. The New York Times published this article on fan reaction during his Barnes and Noble stop in Manhattan. The story, written by Joshua Robinson, offers the following thoughts by the author as […]
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Is it just me, or does the premise for this new novel sound familiar? From the publisher’s website: Suicide Squeeze follows super fan, Jamie Mudd, through an unusual Seattle baseball season where he begins to believe that his entries on a scorecard can influence action on the field (my emphasis added). While grappling with the […]
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This is the time of year when home gardeners (of which I am one) look forward to receiving their seed catalogs. I also enjoy getting the latest from the publishing world. Today I received the Ivan R. Dee catalog, which includes the following baseball titles: Catcher, by Peter Morris — The author of such neo-classics […]
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is available on Amazon.com,
In a former life, I was the sports and features editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper, where I hosted an award-winning bog about Jews and Sports.
I did a profile piece on the legendary cartoonist Arnold Roth and he was very generous in immortalizing me in this caricature.
My article on Sandy Koufax in the 1965 World Series appears in
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
* RK Review (and then some): Odd Man Out
March 3, 2009
A Year on the Mound with a Minor League Misfit, by Matt McCarthy (Viking) When I first read Odd Man Out, I thought it was the best book of its kind I had seen in many years. Too many “flavor of the month,” riding the high from a World Series win at best or a […]
Tagged as: baseball memoirs, Matt McCarthy, Rob Neyer
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