Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
At least when it comes to baseball reading. Lapham’s Quarterly, “a magazine of history and ideas,” devotes its Summer 2010 issue to sports through the centuries with articles, poems, and illustrations both old and new (mostly old). Among the baseball items: This list of do’s and don’ts for members of the All-American Girls Professional baseball […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
J.C. Bradbury, author of The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed and the upcoming Hot Stove Economics: Understanding Baseball’s Second Season — to be published in October by Springer — wrote about Edwin Jackson’s 149-pitch no-hitter. I had a little to say about that too on my other blog, in context with the anniversary of […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, July 2. Title Rank General Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 1 Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball, by Bill Madden 2 The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime, by Scott Turbow […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
So my softball team participated in a playoff game last night. We lost a heart-breaker, up by three runs going into the bottom of the final frame to the team that finished in first place. Don’t get me started. Anyway, I bring this up in conjunction with Stephen King’s baseball novella. A passage from this […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
In today’s installment, the missing words are “Baseball cards,” as discussed in this piece from the Sports Illustrated website on Josh Wilker’s book Cardboard Gods, as per Ted Anthony, who writes about American culture for the Associated Press: baseball-card blogger and memoirist Josh Wilker has come through. The unforgettable “Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Former Met chaw-chewer and car-wash tycoon Lenny Dykstra supposedly made a big name for himself as an investment genius. Eh, maybe not. But he is prominently featured in The Zeroes, by Randall Lane, according to this review in The Wall Street Journal. You may recall that Dykstra was also going to try his hand at […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
* The Book Corner posted this review of Stephen King’s Blockade Billy. Upshot: The book “will definitely satisfy Stephen King readers as well as those who don’t normally go for the sort of stories on which he made his reputation. And it’s closer to those kinds of stories than the story that fills out the […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, June 25. Title Rank General Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 1 Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball, by Bill Madden 2 The Game from Where I Stand: A Ballplayer’s Inside View, by Doug Glanville 3 The Bullpen Gospels: Major […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
My review of the new Stephen King novella (plus an additional story) is up on Bookreporter.com. For your convenience, I’ve reprinted it below: There was plenty of buzz in the mystery/thriller/horror and baseball fiction communities when it was announced that Stephen King would release a novella titled BLOCKADE BILLY. Online book merchants quickly took pre-orders […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Found this press release about said new book by Gary Hall, which I reprint in part: Amazing new book “Baseball Legends & Legacies” by Gary Hall interviews 25 Baseball legends. This hot summer release is based on interviews with 25 of baseballs’ greatest players. Gary Hall interviews and records page after page of exciting stories. […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The Dorchester Reporter posted this Clark Booth review of Bill Madden’s latest title, Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball. Upshot: “It is, I believe, a decidedly important baseball book. Bill Madden is the man to tell it.”
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Apropos to my conversation with Mike Cameron, author of Private Bonehead, Public Hero: The Real Legacy of Fred Merkle, here are a few videos mentioned in his book, as well as bonus featuring a much younger Keith Olberman.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The New York Times‘ sports media guy, Richard Sandomir, published this piece on Stephen King’s newest. Read the novella last week, and, frankly, I wonder if it would have received all this attention had it been written by a different (read: not as famous) author. While it’s a sufficient story, we keep waiting — knowing […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, June 18. Title Rank General Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball, by Bill Madden 1 The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime, by Jason Turbow with Michael Duca 2 Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend, by James […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
by Billy Lombardo (Overlook, 2010) The last couple of titles I’ve blogged about have father and son issues (Steinbrenner and Home, Away). So, with Father’s Day coming up, I figured I complete the trifecta. The great love of Henry Granville’s life is baseball. It is a time-honored tradition he knows he will pass on to […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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
