Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
501 update: Received the index back for a bit of very minor revising. Then it’s really done. Gratified by the very early interest by members of the media in doing reviews. Bruce Markusen over at The Hardball Times offers another in his series of “baseball card mysteries.” This time it’s Dave Nelson’s 1973 Topps. Speaking […]
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Sent in the index last night and just now found out I have a publicist. (How pretentious must that sound. “Give me your info and I’ll put you in touch with my publicist.”) In the meantime, I’m working on a new stand-alone web presence for the book, then it’s time to relax for a couple […]
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This goes back aways, but David Roth wrote about R.A. Dickey, mold-breaker for the concept of the cliched athlete, in the July 9 issue of New Yorker. More recently, Will Leitch offers these thoughts about the Mets in a “reasons to love New York” retrospective. Bruce Markusen at The Hardball Times posted this piece about […]
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Finished! At least with the galleys. The index comes next. I find the who author process fascinating. No matter how many times you look at it, there’s always something that can or should change. In some cases, a typo has managed to get through despite spell-check, several thorough going-overs, a copy editor, another going-over, a […]
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In one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies, speech therapist Lionel Logue and the future King of England share the following exchange during their first meeting: I was reminded of this today when I learned that the new University of Nebraska Press catalog had just been released and there it is, […]
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Just received the galleys for my forthcoming book, 501 Books Baseball Fans Must Read before They Die. Very exciting. Seems like this is really going to happen (knock on wood).
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Received notification after I posted the previous piece… New American Library will publish John Rosengren’s Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes in March. But according to an e-mail from the author, “you don’t have to wait until then to get a sneak peak at the definitive biography. “You can read excerpts, see photos, browse extended […]
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Waiting for the galleys for a final look-see and to create the index. Should be interesting, plus a skill I can use in the future. Thinking about what promotional goodies I can order: postcards, bookmarks, life-size bust of the author. You know, the usual. I wonder what guys like Carl Sandburg or Charles Dickens would […]
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The director of A League of Their Own recently published My Mother Was Nuts. Naturally the cover caught my eye. So now I feel I have to read the damn thing, just to find out why — of all the things she could have worn for the book art, she decided to go with catcher’s […]
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The corrections to the manuscript have been made by my copywriter, Tyler, an most excellent fellow, and sent back to UNP for galley-making. My next challenge is to construct the index, which sounds like an interesting undertaking. I have been in the process of contacting as many of the extant authors as I can find […]
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Friday is the traditional movie review day in the press (anyone remember when there were two release days? Movies used to come out on Fridays and Wednesdays). Here’s the NY Times‘ assessment, by A.O. Scott. Upshot: The trouble with baseball movies like “Trouble With the Curve” is that they tempt reviewers to reach for hackneyed […]
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This comes from Publishers Weekly.
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Actually, it was Mr. Federal Express Man. Received the penultimate revision of my manuscript back from the University of Nebraska Press. All nicely formatted and awaiting my overview and approval. Very cool. I have three weeks to get it back. I assume the next step would be settling on graphic elements, then creating the index. […]
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I was at a retreat this weekend on Judaism & Baseball (more on that later), where singer/songwriter Dan Bern debuted some pieces from Doubleheader, his forthcoming album of songs about the national pastime. He will officially debut the work at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown tomorrow. From the Hall of Fame press release: The […]
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They’ve been talking about a Mike Piazza memoir for a few years now. Looks like the time is almost at hand for its release by Simon & Schuster. But exactly when is still up in the air. Pizza promised a “tell-all,” but would that include material about suspected performance enhancing drug usage? According to Chass’ […]
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(Update: I do not have a middle name. My parents were very poor. So sometimes I fiddle around with one to see what kind of junk mail it engenders. The latest one is “Fitzgerald.”) Spent the day at the BookExpo America at the Javitz Center in Manhattan. It’s always fun to see what the industry […]
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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
