Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Combining the best of both worlds, the Chapters Bookstore in Pittsfield, MA, will hold “For The Love of Baseball” Doubleheader. on Saturday — Valentine’s Day — Feb. 14, from 3-5 p.m. Author and Berkshire resident Dan Valenti will discuss his love for Pittsfield and the state of professional baseball with American Defender GM Jon Tosches. […]
Tagged as: Baseball Comes Home, Baseball Hall of Fame, Dan Valenti
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January 18, 2009
The 26th annual CASEY Awards Banquet will be held Sunday, March 8, at 4 p.m. at Sawyer Point in downtown Cincinnati. The Banquet will be held in the skating building, next to the Montgomery Inn Boathouse (705 East Pete Rose Way). Admission is $10. The winner has not yet been selected. For more information, contact […]
Tagged as: awards, events, Spitball
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January 9, 2009
Baseball authors Talmage Boston and Milton Jamail are among confirmed guests for the third annual Central Texas Mid-winter meeting organized by the Rogers Hornsby Chapter of the Society of American Baseball Research. The meeting begins at 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 17 in Room 320 of Old Main on the campus of Texas State University. Boston […]
Tagged as: Larry Dierker, Milton Jamail, Talmage Boston
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November 19, 2008
Julia Stevens, the daughter of Babe Ruth, recently appeared at a Las Vegas book store to promote her new book, Babe Ruth: Remembering The Bambino in Stories, Photos, and Memorabilia. It was only seven years ago that she and her co-author, Bill Gilbert, published Major League Dad: A Daughter’s Cherished Memories. (Not to be confused […]
Tagged as: Babe Ruth, Julia Stevens
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October 25, 2008
Dan Gordon, coauthor of Haunted Baseball, has guaranteed he’ll be remembered and interviewed every Halloween. This year he’ll be appearing at the Newbury Public Library to discuss his work. Boo!
Tagged as: baseball ghosts
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October 15, 2008
Time marches on. That was Art Shamsky’s sentiment at a program hosted by the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center in Little Falls on Sept. 21. With the closing of Shea Stadium days away and the 40th anniversary of his “Miracle Mets” on the horizon, the former Major Leaguer discussed his experiences in the United […]
Tagged as: Art Shamsky, Israel Baseball League, New York Mets, World Series
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October 14, 2008
To Tom Stanton, author of Ty and The Babe, The Final Season and The Road to Cooperstown, for winning the 2008 Michigan Author Award from the Michigan Center for the Book. The Award will be presented at the Michigan Library Association “Shaping Our Tomorrow” conference at a luncheon on Friday, Oct. 24.at the Radisson Plaza […]
Tagged as: book awards, Tom Stanton
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October 13, 2008
The former Astros’ all-star will sign copies of his book Biggio: The Final Game, at the Barnes and Noble at 5000 Westheimer in Houston On Oct. 25.
Tagged as: Craig Biggio, Houston Astros
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September 14, 2008
“One of the interesting things to me is that there’s such a long history of baseball in these places that preceded the interests of Major League baseball,” said author Adrian Burgos. “The game was there before MLB stepped onto the scene.” Burgos, an associate history professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, is the author […]
Tagged as: Adrian Burgos, Latin America, Latino baseball
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September 5, 2008
If you happen to be in Manchester Center this evening, Nicholas Dawidoff, author of The Crowd Sounds Happy, will be at the Northshire Bookstore at 7 p.m. Dawidoff is also the author of The Catcher Was a Spy and edited The Baseball Anthology. For more information, call 362-2200 or 1-800-437-3700, or visit www.northshire.com.
Tagged as: Nicholas Dawidoff
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September 3, 2008
The author of five baseball books, including The Rules and Lore of Baseball and Aaron to Zuverink: A Nostalgic Look at the Players of the Fifties will give a lecture at the Seymour Historical Society museum , 59 West Street, Southbury, CT, on Sunday, Sept. 7, at 1 p.m.
Tagged as: Rich Marazzi
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September 2, 2008
The author of Remembering Yankee Stadium — one of the a seemingly endless stream of such books, albeit perhaps the best packaged — will be making several appearances in the New York, Vermont, Virginia, New Hampshire, Florida, New Jersey, and Connecticut areas. For more details, visit his site.
Tagged as: Harvey frommer, Yankee Stadium
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August 30, 2008
Kerry Yo Nakagawa will discuss his book, Through a Diamond: 100 Years of Japanese American Baseball on Friday September 19, 7 pm Community Roomat the Altadena, Calif. library, located at 600 E. Mariposa. Following his talk will be a screening of American Pastime, the award-winning film he produced. This powerful film tells the story of […]
Tagged as: Japanese baseball, Kerry Yo Nakagawa
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July 29, 2008
Deidre Silva and Jackie Koney authors of It Takes More Than Balls: The Savvy Girls’ Guide to Understanding and Enjoying Baseball, will put in an appearance at an event for the Association for Women in Communications in September. So you have plenty of advance notice. TIME: 5:30 p.m. networking; 6:00-7:00 p.m. food, drink and program […]
Tagged as: baseball authors
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July 25, 2008
At this risk of being untimely, I’m linking to this story from the M (for Michigan) Live site about a library appearance by former AAGPBL player and author Rosemary “Stevie” Stevenson and fellow (?) ballplayer Doris “Little Cookie” Cook (love those nicknames). Stevenson wrote Don’t Die on Third, released last yearabout the her experiences in […]
Tagged as: AAGPBL
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July 25, 2008
Local author John Coulson will sign copies of his new book, Hanover Raiders: Minor League Baseball in Hanover, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, July 31, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Guthrie Memorial Library-Hanover’s Public Library, 2 Library Place. To read more about his book, click here.
Tagged as: minor leagues
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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.
In Forbes Magazine re: Baseball Business Books
On Will Carroll’s “Under the Knife” substack
Most recent books read updated 12/21/24:
Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball, by Keith O’Brien
Grade: A. The most in-depth bio to date, focusing on Rose's gambling addiction.
Sometimes You See It Coming, by Kevin Baker
Grade: B. I first read this one when it originally came out some 30 years ago. I must say I don't remember it being so raunchy in spots. Draws on lots of real-life events and characters that real fans will recognize.
The Last of His Kind: Clayton Kershaw and the Burden of Greatness, by Andy McCullough
Grade: A. I usually don't like titles with superlatives, but in this case the author might be right, although there are probably a couple of Kershaw's contemporaries (Verlander and Scherzer) who fit that description.
The Yankee Way: The Untold Inside Story of the Brian Cashman Era, by Andy Martino
Grade: B+. Even this non-Yankee fan found the deep background with its Moneyball-like machinations interesting
The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City, by Kevin Baker
Grade: A. Well-researched, well-written. What else could you ask for? Baker has a lot of street cred writing about New York as well, both in fiction and non-fiction.
The Body Scout, by Lincoln Michel
Grade: C. Perhaps the ultimate performance enhancers -- interchangeable body parts -- help major leaguers of the future. But, as with all of these things, there's a price to pay.
Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards, by Josh Wilker
Grade: A. Re-read in preparation for a Bookshelf Conversation with the author. Had a deeper meaning than when I first read it more than a decade ago.
The Bookshelf Conversation
Discussions about all things baseball with authors, journalists, filmmakers, musicians, artists, et al
Subscribe to the "Bookshelf Conversations" podcast on iTunes and please leave a rating and/or review. Gracias!
Mike Shannon on "Diamond Classics II" ( video)
Todd Radom, Ellen Linder, and Brian Kong ( video)
Rick Cerrone (Baseball Digest, video)
Kevin Baker (Sometimes You See It Coming, video)
Curtis Pride and Doug Ward (video)
Dan Epstein on James Earl Jones (video)
Jim Gilmore and Tracy Holcomb (video)
"The Lost Tapes": Conversations prior to 2011 (audio)
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
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