Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Haven’t been posting much lately for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I’ve been working on the final galleys for the 501 book. Almost done with that and then I have to create the index, which should be interesting. I’ve also been researching a stand-alone web-presence for the book, which is proving a bit […]
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Ninety Feet of Perfection posted this entry about all the Major leaguers who have appeared on The Simpsons. The classic, of course, is the first one — Homer at the bat — which features Don Mattingly, Jose Canseco, Darryl Strawberry, Roger Clemens, Ken Griffey Jr., Steve Sax, Ozzie Smith, Wade Boggs, and Mike Scioscia. But other […]
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Used to be you had to wait until at least February for the first whiff of baseball lit to be available. Not any more. The Hardball Times Annual and The Bill James Handbook are already out an about. Herewith a few reviews: The Handbook, by SB Nation, ESPN’s Sweet Spot. HBT: Not so much a […]
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♦ Here’s an oldie but a goodie via eBay: a copy of H. Allen Smith’s classic Rhubarb, about a cat who inherits a baseball team. ♦ The novel was turned into a 1951 feature film starring Ray Milland (who was also the lead in the 1949 baseball comedy It Happens Every Spring), Jan Stirling, Gene […]
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♦ Bill Jordan at Baseball Reflections posted this on The Baseball Hall of Shame: The Best of Blooperstown. Upshot: “With the book being built around blurbs, instead of lengthy stories, it is a quick read and would be something that is easy to browse through. One might even call this a good book to read […]
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Remember when I warned about the motives of Jeffrey Luria and the Miami Marlins when they signed Adam Greenberg to a one-game contract so he could get that first official at-bat? So much for the good-will he engendered with that act of kindness. Stephen J. Dubner, coauthor of one of my favorite book series (and […]
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Raise your hand if you, like me, are tired to the cliche about the thinnest publication being a treatise on Jewish sports heroes (or some riff thereon). It is therefore with an understandable sense of pride that I recommend Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame. While this collection of 50 essays isn’t just about […]
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♦ One of my neo-favorites books have been the Freaknomics series. Their blog included this item about the eternal question (well, eternal since 1903, with the occasional break), “Does the best team win the World Series?” By teh way, Freakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner contributed an essay about everybody’s favorite comeback kid, Adam Greenberg, in […]
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Not to get political here, but judging by what’s been coming down the Internet, there’s a lot of connection between presidents and baseball. For example, The Hall of Very Good published this piece on “The Bond Between Baseball and the Presidency.” In addition, Nate Silver, of FiveThirtyEight fame, still gets kudos for his baseball work, […]
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First it was PunditTracker, which analyzed the proficiency of baseball experts in their preseason prognostications. Now it’s this Sam Miller article in Baseball Prospectus, which concentrates questions put to general managers over the course of nine years. Upshot: “[P]redicting baseball might just be impossible, and a team that puts too much faith in its own […]
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Ok, hurication is over. Time to get back to some semblance of normalcy. I hope y’all are okay out there. We came out unscathed save for a couple of days without power; presently we have no cable/Internet service, but no complaints given what so many others are going through. Before the power went out we […]
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Sorry for the sporadic posts, but still trying to squeeze in a few entries as I can. ♦ The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky., posted this review of Bushville Wins. Upshot: “…Klima intersperses interesting details with an obsession to link the team with Miller Brewing, the Milwaukee-based company that helped finance the new enterprise. There were […]
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As per pundit tracker, here’s a list of how baseball writers and pundits “scored” in their predictions.
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Well, he is holding a baseball bat, so that’s good enough for me. Besides, Breaking Curve Bad is one of my favorite shows.
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A couple of recent titles serve as a reminder that no matter where you go, there you are. Chris Jensen’s contribution to the national pastime and Americana is Baseball State by State: Major and Negro League Players, Ballparks, Museums and Historical Sites, published by McFarland. He travels the highways and byways from coast to coast, […]
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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
