Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The Boston Globe has been active on the baseball review front of late. Bill Nowlin, author of several titles on the Red Sox, contributed this piece on Howard Bryant’s bio of Hank Aaron for today’s edition. Yesterday, Bill Littlefield, host of NPR’s Only a Game, considered two baseball titles — Cardboard Gods by Josh Wilker […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
At home plate posted this extensive review of James Hirsch’s bio of the Hall of Famer. Upshot: “This book is a feast for serious baseball aficionados and a veritable banquet for Giants fans. The sheer heft should not matter to those folks. They should plunge right in, especially those who remember the young Willie. A […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
This top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, May 14. Title Rank General The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime, by Jason Turbow and Michael Duca 1 The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran, by Dirk Hayhurst 2 Moneyball: The Art […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The first of several attempts to try to get current with information about baseball books, etc. Edward Achorn, author of the new Hoss Radbourn bio, wrote about his experience at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books held earlier this month. Mark Kurlansky, author of Eastern Stars, was a guest on Southern California Public Radio. […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging ’70s, by Dan Epstein. Thomas Dunne, 2010. For many fans of a certain age, the 7os are too quickly becoming “the good old days. ” Man, that sounds strange. But as the fan base changes in demographics, books like Big Hair and Plastic Grass will […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
I was reading this New York Times review of Howard Bryant’s new biography, The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron, when the title hit me. The Last Hero. What does that say about us? Are heroes just for kids? Have we become so jaded that such an idea seems old-fashioned? I probably say this […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Two baseball items of note in the May 7 issue of popular pop culture weekly: A story on Touching Home, the Miller Brother’s homage to their father, starring Ed Harris. By the way, the film makes its New York debut on May 14 at the Village East Cinema. Might be stopping by myself. If you […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Cover story: Athletes behaving badly (and that was before Lawrence Taylor). The main baseball story is a profile of Carlos Pena and the Tampa Bay Rays, by Ben Reiter. Other baseball items include: A mini-review of Josh Wilker’s Cardboard Gods (but, hey, just getting your book mentioned in SI is a coup). Ben Reiter’s brief […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
to Willie Mays, who turned 79 yesterday.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
This week’s best-selling baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, May 7. Title Rank General The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime, by Jason Turbow and Michael Duca 1 The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran, by Dirk Hayhurst 2 Moneyball: The […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran this review of the Pirates’ Hall of Fame third baseman Pie Traynor: A Baseball Biography and Kiss It Goodbye, The Mystery, the Mormon and the Moral of the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates. The piece also links to reviews of Willie Mays: The Life the Legend; The Last Hero: A Life of Hank […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The Emerald Guide to Baseball, published by the Society for American Baseball Research, is now available. The new edition includes Opening Day rosters and a “notated Umpires Register,” among other items. You can read my original post about the Guide here.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Tom Hoffarth concludes his “30 baseball books in 30 days of ’10” feature with a nice shout-out to Bill Lewers and his Six Decades of Baseball: A Personal Narrative. I will be doing my own assessment of this one in the not-too-distant future, but Lewers sersve as a reminder that just because you’re not in […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Congratulations to Richard Beverage, this month’s Facebook Fan prize winner of an autographed copy of Dan Fost’s Giants Past & Present. The May giveaway will be a copy of Sean Manning’s entertaining Top of the Order: 25 Writers Pick Their Favorite Baseball Player. Tell your friends!
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Man, I wish I had this type of article from Newsweek for other parts of daily life. Imagine: We eat it so you don’t have to. We go to work so you don’t have to. We argue with the wife so you don’t have to. We (fill in the blank) so you don’t have to. […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
About fifty years ago, it was pretty much verbotten for ballplayers to lift weights. The managers thought it would make them too bulky and tight. Nowadays it’s not uncommon to find the athletes gracing the cover of fitness magazines. Case in point: Matt Holliday of the St. Louis Cardinals, who appears on Muscle and Fitness‘ […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
There’s something supernatural about a review of a book that hasn’t been published yet, but it doesn’t seem to be stopping anyone from opining on Stephen King’s upcoming baseball novella, Blockade Billy. From Publishers Weekly: A quirky baseball player with a past shrouded in secrecy is the tragic hero of this macabre tale from the […]
{ 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
* Bookshelf Review: The Underground Baseball Encyclopedia
May 6, 2010 · 1 comment
Baseball Stuff You Never Needed to Know and Can Certainly Live Without, by Robert Schnakenberg. Triumph, 2010. Schnakenberg takes his love for pop culture (anti-culture?) and puts a national pastime spin on it in this little faux-reference volume. The connection between PC and baseball has been handled in more serious veins by Jonathan Fraser Light […]
Tagged as: baseball humor, baseball reference, trivia
{ Comments on this entry are closed }