Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
A regional title announced in the pages of The Telegraph-Herald of Dubuque, Iowa. I’m including it just as much for the audio rendition as the brief story itself. For one thing, how could a visually-impaired person be able to find the link? And, at the risk of being un-PC, the computer-generated voice sounds like Stephen […]
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Jonah Keri announces on his blog that his has agreed to terms with ESPN Books and Random House on a book analyzing the Tampa Bay Rays and the team’s “Wall Street approach to baseball.” (The concept sounds very interesting, but with the way Wall Street is going these days, maybe the Rays should look for […]
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According to this item from the daily Publishers Weekly e-mail. Why is this significant? Both companies have put out several baseball titles over the last few years. Sourcebooks titles include: Do You Know the New York Yankees?: Test your expertise with these fastball questions (and a few curves) about your favorite team’s hurlers, sluggers, stats […]
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To Peter Schilling, Jr. The St. Louis Post Dispatch picked his novel as one of the best books of 2008, to wit: The End of Baseball by Peter Schilling Jr. (Ivan R. Dee, 352 pages, $25). Baseball’s 1944 Brownies live again in this rollicking novel. Owner Bill Veeck shines in fiction, just as he did […]
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From the Baseball Hall of Fame: Special opportunity for summer Internship The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is now accepting applications for the 2009 Frank and Peggy Steele Internship Program for Youth Leadership Development. This summer-long internship offers meaningful, hands-on training in numerous professional careers as well as the chance to learn and […]
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Spitball Magazine just announced the finalists for the 2008 CASEY Award, Almost a Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the 1980 Phillies, by William Kashatus (University of Pennsylvania Press) Neil Leifer: Ballet in the Dirt: The Golden Age of Baseball, by Neil Leifer (Taschen) (See here for samples.) Baseball’s Greatest Hit: The Story of “Take […]
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Another former player turns (co)author in Phillies Confidential: The Untold Story of the 2008 Championship Season. (How anything of importance remains untold in this day and age is a mystery.) Matthews — not to be confused with teammate Gary “The Secretary of State” Maddox — was with the team from 1981-83, thereby missing the last […]
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Too bad they can’t get rid of some of those annoying supplements that highlight fashion, furnishings, and vacations that “regular” folks can’t afford instead of doing away with Play, the Times‘ sports supplement. If the sports department is the toy store of a newspaper, I guess we won’t be getting much in the way of […]
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from Library Journal.com, this “prepub Alert: McCarthy, Matt. Odd Man Out: A Season on the Mound with Minor League Baseball’s Most Unlikely Pitcher. Viking. Mar. 2009. 320p. ISBN 978-0-670-02070-6. $25.95. It’s not every Yale molecular biophysics major who ends up playing baseball professionally. McCarthy, currently interning at New York’s Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, here recounts a season […]
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Sure, Plimpton wrote about things other than sports, but that’s where I remember him best. No doubt he was the inspiration for hundreds of other sportswriters to step down from their glass-enclosed press box to give the games they covered a whirl. I even took a turn, playing in a game with a men’s 35-and-over […]
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Cubs’ skipper Lou Pienlla and Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon were named managers of the year for 2008. Pinella published Sweet Lou, written with Maury Allen in 1986. He’s got a new one coming out next year from St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne. So can it be long before Maddon has one, too? Managers whose teams […]
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Publishers Weekly announced yesterday that Simon and Schuster would be publishing Mike Piazza’s autobiography. Didn’t take long for sportswriters and pundits to weigh in on the project. The PW piece mentioned the “controversies” — Piazza’s relationship with the LA Dodgers, confrontation with Roger Clemens, hints of his sexuality — that would be a major component […]
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This one by Mark Cressnan in The A to Z History of Baseball. At the risk of being totally unfair, I wonder about such books, self-published and without much pomp and circumstance. For the brief press release to state “Cressman, who possesses a Master’s Degree in Sport Administration, is an authority on the subject matter […]
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From Triumph Books. I guess Three Nights in August doesn’t qualify as an actual biography: Two-time World Series champion Tony La Russa has been one of the most important figures in baseball for the past 30 years, but he has never been the subject of a biography before. Tony La Russa: Man on a Mission […]
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According to a report in today’s Publishers Weekly e-mail: Mike Piazza, a 12-time All Star for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Mets, has signed a deal to write his autobiography for Simon & Schuster. V-p and senior editor Bob Bender acquired world rights from David Black, CEO of Black Inc., and Dan […]
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The Mets are hosting an on-line auction. The cheapest item as of this writing is a $50 stadium brick; the most expensive, is the letter “S” off the Shea Stadium sign (the “Stadium” S, not the “Shea” S) for $2,500. The auction ends October 31.
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http://www.hilaryshepherd.com/rantsnraves/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/body-painting-2.jpgFrom Boston.com, the web presence of the Boston Globe: Sometimes it seems like you could go a whole 10 minutes in Boston without someone pontificating about the good old days and the game of baseball’s lengthy and proud history. In case you find yourself in one of those ruts, you might want to check out […]
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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
* W2W4: Upcoming titles
January 1, 2009
Been receiving some publisher’s catalogs recently. Here are a few 2009 titles to look forward to: >> As mentioned previously, Joe Torre and Tom Verducci have collaborated on the manager’s autobio, coming next month from Random House. >> Bloomsbury will release a behind-the-scenes look at the machinations of baseball’s Valhalla in Cooperstown Confidential: Heroes, Rogues, […]
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