Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
February 25, 2026 · 0 comments
♦ The passing of Pirates Hall of Famer Bill Mazersoki makes tributes like this one — “Maz, You’re Up” from the Pittsburgh quarterly by Richard “Pete” Peterson — all the more poignant. ♦ From MLB.com: “As he recovered from a rare third ulnar collateral ligament surgery on his right elbow, Reds reliever Tejay Antone wrote […]
Tagged as: Bill Mazeroski, Darryl Strawberry
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February 18, 2026 · 0 comments
From WBGO Radio, “Legendary sportswriter and author Jerry Izenberg tells the story of black baseball in his novel ‘Damn You, Josh Gibson: A Ghost Story’” From Sports Collectors Daily: “New Book Chronicles Fake Ty Cobb Items and Pegs Biographer as Source” From the USA Today network: “Celebrate the Detroit Tigers storied history with this hardcover […]
Tagged as: baseball fiction, Detroit Tigers, Jerry Izenberg, Moneyball, Shohei Ohtani
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November 7, 2025
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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May 22, 2025
From the latest Effectively Wild podcast: Ben Lindbergh rounds up the authors of three new baseball books for conversations about their work and our relationships with the past. First he talks to John W. Miller about his biography of Earl Weaver, The Last Manager, Weaver’s wiring and sabermetric intuition, and the diminished role and reputation […]
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January 24, 2025
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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December 21, 2024
I have been a poor host. Other than the weekly best-seller list and the (thankfully) occasional “Lest We Forget” posts, I have not done enough to fulfill my self-appointed responsibilities of bringing you the latest news. Maybe that will be one of my resolutions. But we all know how long those last… Anyway… A feature/Q&A […]
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November 8, 2023
I don’t know about you, but where I live, Christmas items started appearing in store before Halloween. And now that the 2024 season is in the books, here’s a preview off baseball books coming in 2024, as per Amazon. Note that there’s always something that could happen to throw a monkey wrench into the works […]
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May 25, 2023
We lost two major baseball writers with the passing of Rick Wolff, 71, on April 10 and St. Louis Post Dispatch veteran scribe Rick Hummel, 77, on May 20. Wolff published numerous books on coaching and sports psychology. He collaborated with his son on Harvard Boys: A Father and Son’s Adventures Playing Minor League Baseball […]
Tagged as: Rick Hummel, Rick Wolff
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April 18, 2023
The Pandemic Baseball Book Club was a product of its time. I don’t have to remind anyone of the toll the Coronavirus took on this planet. So singling out a small sector (authors) and a smaller sub-sector (baseball authors) might seem silly. But the PBBC under the stewardship of Jason Turbow — offered a way […]
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March 21, 2023
Happy spring! Daniel R. Levitt and Mark Armour, authors of Intentional Balk: Baseball’s Thin Line between Innovation and Cheating, received their 2023 SABR Seymour Medal — honoring the best book of baseball history or biography published during the preceding calendar year — during the 30th annual NINE Spring Training Conference on Saturday, March 4 […]
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February 1, 2023
Two weeks ’til pitchers and catchers! From thecoldwire.com: “MLB writer Evan Drellich has spent the past several years writing a book centered around the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal from back in 2017.” Oddly, the piece does not actually mention the book’s title, which is Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball’s Brightest Minds Created Sports’ Biggest […]
Tagged as: Joe Kelly
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January 10, 2023
An interesting story about the transformation of For Love of the Game from novel to screen? Perhaps, but this piece from The Athletic is behind a paywall so I can’t tell for sure. Speaking of baseball movies, here’s a touching piece in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette about Robert Redford and The Natural as it […]
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January 4, 2023
“If you’re a baseball fan, you’ll know the name Curt Smith.” That’s how David J. Halberstam leads off this nice piece, “Curt Smith continues his love for baseball on radio and television; He’ll never forget the 60s and 70s,” for SportsBroadcastJournal.com. I’ve had the pleasure of reading many of Smith’s books as well as chatting […]
Tagged as: Curt Smith
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October 17, 2022
♦ No surprise: Moneyball is included in this USA Today article on the “the four best business books by sports professionals” (although does Michael Lewis really qualify as such?). ♦ With all the hoopdeedoo about Aaron Judge breaking the “true” home run record, I doubt there is anyone more qualified to write about Roger Maris […]
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October 12, 2022
♦ Currently reading Tyler Kepner’s new book about the World Series. He devotes a chapter to the lesser known players who acquit themselves gloriously on the emblazoned stage of the Fall Classic. But for every ball player who makes it this far into the calendar, there are hundreds, if not not thousands who never enjoy […]
Tagged as: Hank Aaron, Star Trek DSN
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May 25, 2022
They say you should never meet your heroes lest you be disappointed but I’d take that chance. There are just a handful of writers I would want to share a drink with: Leonard Koppett, the first scribe I ever wrote to asking advice; Shirley Povich, because he managed to have an outstanding career in the […]
Tagged as: Roger Angell
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September 17, 2021
Headnote: One of the thing I like about the Pandemic Baseball Book Club is that it’s a kind of “one stop shopping.” Instead of posting about various authors, projects, and events, all I’m doing here is cutting and pasting their weekly newsletter. Do take a moment to read the author Q&A. I find them particularly interesting as […]
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August 11, 2021
Headnote: One of the thing I like about the Pandemic Baseball Book Club is that it’s a kind of “one stop shopping.” Instead of posting about various authors, projects, and events, all I’m doing here is cutting and pasting their weekly newsletter. Do take a moment to read the author Q&A. I find them particularly interesting as […]
Tagged as: Pandemic Baseball Book Club
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August 5, 2021
I’ve always been interested in books about the World Wars. There’s a debt to the members of the armed forces than can never adequately be paid. On the other hand, as regular readers of this blog know, I’m not a huge fan of baseball fiction. But whenever there’s something that combines the two, I’ll give […]
Tagged as: Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, War
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June 30, 2021
Headnote: One of the thing I like about the Pandemic Baseball Book Club is that it’s a kind of “one stop shopping.” Instead of posting about various authors, projects, and events, all I’m doing here is cutting and pasting their weekly newsletter. Do take a moment to read the author Q&A. I find them particularly […]
Tagged as: Japanese baseball, Robert Whiting
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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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