Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Well, maybe not that old, relatively speaking. David Jordan, who collaborated with the late Dave Parker on Cobra: A Life of Baseball and Brotherhood, posted this essay on one of the most talked about baseball novels in memory. Reprinted with permission. THE ART OF FIELDING: A LITERARY CRITICISM So the novel was mentioned here the […]
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Stan Musial becomes the NL all-time hit leader in an 8-1 win over the LA Dodgers (1962) Stan Musial: An American Life, by George Vecsey (2011) Stan the Man: The Life and Times of Stan Musial, by Wayne Stewart (2010) Stan “The Man” Musial, by Irv Goodman (1961)
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The news that Tim Wakefield had died at the age of 57 from brain cancer was a shocker (the leaked info from Curt Schilling notwithstanding). I heard the sad tidings during the Mets game on Sunday. It never ceases to amaze me how “life goes on” after a few minutes of eulogizing. Back to the […]
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Several years ago I accompanied my wife to a veterinary pharmaceutical conference in Jamaica. One of activities I was most looking forward to was a tutorial in cricket. Sadly, the weather was poor and not enough people showed up to make it worthwhile. For some reason, I have long been taken with the sport. As […]
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We lost another baseball lifer with the passing of Eddie Robinson on Monday at the age of 100. Here’s the New York Times obituary by Richard Goldstein. He enjoyed a 13 year career, spent entirely in the American League where he played on every team except the Boston Red Sox. Robinson, the oldest former big […]
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Been busy finalizing my forthcoming book, Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War, which has severely reduced my Bookshelf time. (Even got my first blurb! Very cool.) So in attempt to play catch-up… It’s nice to have your book referenced in a story. You never know that it might […]
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One of the last “Boys of Summer,” Branca probably knew how his obituary would begin immediately after he gave up “the shot heard round the world” to Bobby Thomson. This was the topic of Joshua Prager’s The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard Round the World. Here’s […]
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Since I posted the first of these on a Thursday, which is known on social media as a time of reflection, I thought to make it a regular thing under this rubric. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get. (Actually, I never understood […]
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It’s still Thursday somewhere, right? Got sidetracked yesterday and this slipped my mind. Since I posted the first of these on a Thursday, which is known on social media as a time of reflection, I thought to make it a regular thing under this rubric. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of […]
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Since I posted the first of these on a Thursday, which is known on social media as a time of reflection, I thought to make it a regular thing under this rubric. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get. (Actually, I never understood […]
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Well, perhaps not crazy. Let’s just say “annoyed?” I was reading this piece about “Why I’m Giving Up the NYTimes Book Review Habit,” by Matthew Gasda on the IndieReader website when I came across this passage: This means that, for instance, when a completely unoriginal, flat book gets pushed by its publisher as the next […]
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The best way to play catch-up is via a “Bits and Pieces” entry so here goes: James Bailey offers this appreciation for W.P. Kinsella’s The Iowa Baseball Confederacy. Rob Neyer, Grant Brisbee, and Murray Chass on Mike Piazza and his new book, Long Shot. Don’t know where this excellent Simpsons/Moneyball mashup came from, but Brisbee […]
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Supposedly former sportswriter and baseball commissioner Ford Frick was the one to bestow on Stan Musial the honor, “baseball’s perfect knight.” But as we all know, nobody’s perfect. That’s why I wonder about the purpose of this piece by Luke Epplin in The Atlantic that seeks to drive home the point. In particular, Epplin (who […]
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Some recent news about Jewish authors and their baseball output. Lawrence Ruttman publishes American Jews and America’s Game:Voices of a Growing Legacy in Baseball, from University of Nebraska Press, this spring. UNP is the same outfit that’s releasing my (shameless plug) 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. I met Ruttman, a New […]
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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
