Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The MVP of the 1968 World Series passed away February 4 at the age of 85. Lolich went 217-191 over a 16-year career, spent mostly with the Detroit Tigers. In their World Championship season he was “only” 17-9,pitching behind Denny McLain’s 31-win campaign. He won 20 twice, including a league-leading 25 victories in 1970. Lolich […]
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The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win War War II, by Anne R. Keene For as long as I can remember, The Cloudbuster Nine has had a constant spot on my weekly Baseball Best-Seller list. But until recently, I had never read Anne Keene’s tribute to these […]
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Davey Johnson, who led the 1986 Mets to a World Championship, died Sept. 5 at the age of 82. Here’s his obituary from The New York Times by Bruce Weber. Johnson, who also managed the , was a pretty good player, making a name for himself with the successful Baltimore Orioles of the mid-1960s to early […]
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In 1942, 23-year-old Ted Williams enlists in the Navy, en route to five-plus years spent in the service between World War 2 and Korea. The Wingmen: The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship Between John Glenn and Ted Williams, by Adam Lazarus (2023) The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That […]
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Note: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish writing one). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast one […]
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Note: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish writing one). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast one […]
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Curt Smith and I go way back, relatively speaking. My first interview with him came in 2012 when he published Mercy!: A Celebration of Fenway Park’s Centennial Told Through Red Sox Radio and TV. In The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House — the subject of this Conversation — he […]
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After the previous post, I decided to do a “baseball movie” search on Netflix to see what I could stream on my computer. Here are the results in the order they appear in the results, with some comments where warranted. Note that this was the exact search phrase used for these results. There are other […]
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Note: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish writing one). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast one […]
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Getting an early start since I’m home and have binge-watched all I can stand for the moment. Didn’t post one of these last week, so curious to see how many — if any — brand new titles have made the list. So, shall we? Note: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists […]
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Note: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish writing one). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast one […]
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Is it just me, or have we seem to have more than pour fair share of Friday the 13ths recently? As we inch closer and closer not just to the beginning of the playing season, but the reading season as well when new titles hit the stores. Note: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, […]
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Note: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish writing one). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast one […]
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The Lost Art of Baseball Humor, by Gerard S. Petrone (Pocol Press, 2018) I think a lot of this book is lost on me. While Petrone obviously did a tremendous amount of research in compiling The Lost Art, much of it is not, in fact, humorous. What it is is a amazing and studious look […]
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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
The Bookshelf Conversation #200: Jane Leavy
October 13, 2025
I don’t know when it started or ended but Topps used to reserve cards ending in double-00 for the superstars of the game. Mays, Mantle, Koufax, Carew, Seaver, and Reggie have all appeared multiple times. So I felt it only appropriate to follow their lead and save the 200th Bookshelf Conversation for one of my […]
Tagged as: Jane Leavy
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