Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
1964: Sandy Koufax tosses his third no-hitter. Koufax, by Koufax with Ed Linn (1966) 1968: Don Drysdale, Koufax’s long-time teammate, throws his sixth consecutive shutout, en route to 58 2/3 straight innings without allowing a run. Don Drysdale: Up and In: The Life of a Dodgers Legend, by Mark Whicker (2025) […]
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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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On this date: ♦ Forty-year-old Randy Johnson becomes the oldest pitcher to throw a perfect game, leading the Arizona Diamondbacks over the Atlanta Braves, 2-0. Randy Johnson’s Power Pitching: The Big Unit’s Secrets to Domination, Intimidation, and Winning, by Randy Johnson and Jim Rosenthal (2003) ALSO, Reggie Jackson was born on this date in 1946. […]
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Recently received a copy of On This Day in Baseball History: a Day-By-Day Account of Baseball’s Most Indelible Moments, by something called the “Baseball Time Machine.” This gave me an idea for some more content for the blog. (Years ago I used to do “Happy Birthday” entries for players with books by or about them. […]
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Recently received a copy of On This Day in Baseball History: a Day-By-Day Account of Baseball’s Most Indelible Moments, by something called the “Baseball Time Machine.” This gave me an idea for some more content for the blog. (Years ago I used to do “Happy Birthday” entries for players with books by or about them. […]
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Recently received a copy of On This Day in Baseball History: a Day-By-Day Account of Baseball’s Most Indelible Moments, by something called the “Baseball Time Machine.” This gave me an idea for some more content for the blog. (Years ago I used to do “Happy Birthday” entries for players with books by or about them. […]
{ 0 comments }
Recently received a copy of On This Day in Baseball History: a Day-By-Day Account of Baseball’s Most Indelible Moments, by something called the “Baseball Time Machine.” This gave me an idea for some more content for the blog. (Years ago I used to do “Happy Birthday” entries for players with books by or about them. […]
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Anniversaries are great topics for books and documentaries. This year marked the 20th for the first World Series championship for the Boston Red Sox in generations. Ever since Ken Burns released the iconic Baseball miniseries, fans have endured the same old same old: interviews with talking heads interspersed with still photos and video clips. So […]
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A reminder: 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 posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes (see my piece on “Why Amazon’s search engine sucks“). In addition, occasionally […]
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♦ As we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Hank Aaron’s breaking the all-time home run record, I’m kind of surprised he hadn’t already had a stamp issued in his honor. ♦ Emily Nemens, author of The Cactus League: A Novel, wrote “On the All-But-Invisible Role of Interpreters, in Literature and in Baseball” for Lithub.com. I […]
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It can’t possibly be fifty years since Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record. I vividly remember watching it on TV and being amazed that they halted the game to celebrate. There were a number of books about Aaron that came out after he broke the record but here are a couple of […]
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One hundred. It’s a nice, round number. Picking from the thousands of moments in baseball history is a daunting task. Those who take it on have a responsibility to do the due diligence to separate the merely good from the truly magnificent. Kind of like parsing out true Hall of Famers from those who just […]
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Those are the “traditional names” for the 20th and 35th anniversaries. As mentioned in the BBS post from Friday, we are celebrating two “milestones” in baseball pop culture. Moneyball gets china for marking the 20th since its publication. Doesn’t it seem like we’ve been hearing about that for a lot longer? Friday’s entry refers to […]
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No, not Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. But the “Shot heard ’round the world,” the game that regularly brings up “The Giants win the pennant” call. The game that forever link the names Thomson and Branca a generation before Wilson and Buckner. I was reminded of the platinum anniversary by a piece in […]
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New: An asterisk serves to let you know that the author is a member of the Pandemic Baseball Book Club. I enthusiastically recommend you visit the site, sign up for their newsletter, and buy some merch. A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by […]
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Lost in all the drama of the continuing pandemic, presidential election conventions, and other items: August 17 marked the 100th anniversary of the only fatality on a major league baseball field. Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Naps (as the Indians were known at the time) was killed by a pitch from the New York Yankees’ […]
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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 […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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 […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Given the number of volumes that have been written following the Moneyball formula over the past few years, I’m almost shocked by the paucity of new material regarding the dark cloud that has hovered over our national pastime for 100 years. I’m referring to the 1919 Black Sox Scandal. To be sure, there have been […]
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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
