Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Conducted my semi-regular scan of new titles. Submitted for your interest. It may seem unfair, but I do tend to judge e-books by their cover, especially when they are offered only in that format. It’s an indication of the time and effort the author/publisher puts into the project. Similarly, I’m basing my opinions strictly on […]
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♦ Bleacher Report posted this one about Golden Boys: Baseball Portraits, 1946-1960 by the late Andy Jurinko. Upshot: “Seldom does a book come around that can boast about being magnificently illustrated as well as historically captivating, let alone a book based on the Golden Age of baseball.” ♦ SouthBendTribune.com posted this review of Andre Dawson’s […]
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I think I’m fairly up on pop culture, especially TV and movies. so when I saw a commercial for this upcoming Clint Eastwood/Amy Adams/Justin Timberlake baseball movie, I had to scratch my head. How is it I haven’t heard about this one, which is set to open on Sept. 21? Moneyball got lots of buzz […]
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Some vacation. Actually it was no vacation at all. This is the first time since Aug. 1 I’ve been upright, pain-free, and clear-headed enough to post. Following my 11-seconds of fame as one of the first-pitch-throwers at a Trenton Thunder game, I’ve been suffering with a respiratory infection that had me feverish, coughing, and otherwise […]
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Stephen King and Stewart O’Nan recently announced a new joint venture. Shortly after the Boston Red Sox won their first Word Championship since 1918, King and O’Nan published Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season, which was basically a series of back-and-forth emails. This time it’s a fiction eBook, A […]
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* Baseball Prospectus is adding a mid-season “addenda” to its annual publication: The Call Up 2012. Here are a couple of review, the first from SouthsideShowdown, the second from ValueOverReplacementGrit. My question is: why is a book like this necessary? Those interested in such information would probably find it easier to get the most recent […]
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Interesting premise. Just one of several though-provokers in Bad Sports, by Dave Zirin. Not exactly sure why a review of a two-year old book was posted on the Los Angeles Review of Books site at this time (other than the fact that it was recently released as a paperback), but here it is. And while […]
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Another sports magazine show? Well, when you carry the SI imprimatur, people will pay attention. The monthly offering premieres tonight on the NBC Sports Network. One of the four segments: The Bundy Project: The development of prized Baltimore Orioles pitching prospect Dylan Bundy is quite extraordinary. He squats 500 lbs. throws a 100-mph fastball, drinks […]
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* The New York Times published this review about Ballplayer: Pelotero, a film documentary about baseball in the Dominican Republic. Upshot: “Forget feel-good boys-of-summer tales. This film shows a shady business in which scouts and the teams they represent try to manipulate teenage players, and to some extent the players do some manipulating of their […]
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A Memoir of Fathers, Sons, and Baseball, by Joshua L. Berkowitz. Vantage Point, 2012. One of the knocks about youth sports over the last generation of so is that every kid comes away with a trophy, at least in the early stages. It’s all about building self-esteem, cooperating with others, good sportsmanship, etc. But as […]
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John Klima discusses his latest book, Bushville Wins!: The Wild Saga of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves and the Screwballs, Sluggers, and Beer Swiggers Who Canned the New York Yankees and Changed Baseball, on WUWM, Milwaukee’s NPR presence. In the “here’s something you don’t see everyday” department, author Don Spivey wants his biography on Satchel Paige […]
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* The Capital Times (Madison, WI) published reviews on Daniel Levitt’s The Battle that Forged Modern Baseball: The Federal League Challenge and Its Legacy and John Klima’s Bushville Wins!: The Wild Saga of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves and the Screwballs, Sluggers, and Beer Swiggers Who Canned the New York Yankees and Changed Baseball. Upshot, former […]
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Slate’s Hang Up and Listen, is one of my “must-hear” podcasts. The chatter is almost always entertaining (except when they talk about soccer. ugh.). This week one of the topics was the classic Abbot and Costello routine. Coming on the heals of the Seinfeld-Costas deconstruction aired last week on the MLB Network, I have to […]
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One of the good things about having a Kindle or Nook is the ability to read sample of a book before buying. Makes sense; if you were at a bookstore, you’d probably leaf through at least a few pages (although I once read an entire book over the course of a few lunch hours. That’s […]
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Saw the first episode of Showtime’s The Franchise last night. Not much to say, really. The focus was Ozzie Guillen (who was suspended early on for his remarks about Fidel Castro), closer Heath Bell’s woes, and the team’s overall ups and downs over the first three months of the season. (Warning: the program contains lots […]
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With the All-Star break an extra day longer this year, the MLB Network had to find something to fill the time usually taken up with endless repeats of the same information. So they premiered Costas & Seinfeld: Who’s on First?, a deconstruction of the classic comedy routine. The Seinfeld fan will recall the two-part episode […]
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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
Odd Times
July 30, 2012
Found a couple of baseball items in this weekend’s New York Times, but not in the usual place (i.e., the sports section). In the Sunday Magazine, The Ethicist‘s Chuck Klosterman weighed in on the rights of ownership when it comes to foul ball distribution. In the Week in Review section, Nicholas Dawidoff, author of The […]
Tagged as: Chuck Klosterman, Ethicist, New York Times Magazine, Nicholas Dawidoff, Sunday Magazine
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