Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
October 11, 2008
Rick Brimeyer gets dibs. His journal of the season, Every Hundred Years: A Typical Cubs Fan Chronicles an Atypical Season, was just waiting for the final shoe to drop, the last nail go into the coffin, the…well, you get the idea. The Freeport (IL) Journal-Standard ran this story on Brimeyer. Brimeyer wants his book, a […]
Tagged as: Chicago Cubs, Rick Brimeyer
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October 11, 2008
The Ulm (MN) Journal posted this feature on Dooner, author of The History of Arlington Baseball. Dooner is an “Arlington A’s Hall of Famer.”
Tagged as: Arlington baseball, Mike Dooner
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October 7, 2008
From the MyCentralJersey website, this profile of a native son and author of No Minor Accomplishment: The Revival of New Jersey Professional Baseball.
Tagged as: Bob Golon, minor league baseball, New Jersey baseball
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October 7, 2008
(But no Dawn. [cricket chirps]. Never mind). Orlando, author of the new Collecting Sports Legends: The Ultimate Hobby Guide (Zyrus Press), is profiled in The Wall Street Journal. I guess with the current economic climate, investing in baseball cards might come back into vogue. The article includes a “tab” for a challenging quiz to test […]
Tagged as: Baseball Cards
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September 29, 2008
Meissner recently published his new novel, Spirits in the Grass, “…the fictional story of Luke Tanner, a 30-something baseball player helping build a new baseball field in his small hometown of Clearwater, Wis. “His discovery of a small bone fragment on the field sets in motion a series of discoveries and cover-ups that involve his […]
Tagged as: baseball fiction
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September 29, 2008
The Chicago Post-Tribune ran this feature on the author of several White Sox books, including Chicago White Sox: 1959 and Beyond and South Side Hitmen: The Story of the 1977 Chicago White Sox.
Tagged as: Chicago White Sox, Dan Helpinstine
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September 22, 2008
A profile from the Palm Beach Post of Lee McPhail, the 91-year-old ex-baseball executive, and author of My Nine Innings: An Autobiography of 50 Years in Baseball. My favorite line: …MacPhail, who’s going on his third decade in Delray Beach and gave up golf just a year ago, has so many memories from a half-century […]
Tagged as: Lee McPhail, New York Yankees Yankee Stadium
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September 22, 2008
MyCentralJersey.com recently ran this piece on the author of No Minor Accomplishment: The Revival of New Jersey Professional Baseball.
Tagged as: baseball in New Jersey, Bob Golon, minor leagues
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September 18, 2008
I don’t know why I have a hard time grasping the relatively advanced age of some of the players who I followed as a kid. Bench, for example is 60. Anyway, this piece appears in the Hillsboro, OH Times-Gazette. He’s appearing at a loc bookstore tonight to sign his latest title, Catch Every Ball.
Tagged as: Johnny Bench
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September 17, 2008
From MediaBistro.com, this Q&A with the SI sportswriter who manages to get away with writing about four stories a year! Granted they’re very good, in-depth stories, but where can I get a gig like that?
Tagged as: Gary Smith, Sports Illustrated
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September 17, 2008
In this article from Daily Yuriumi Online, Yoshinobu Furumoto discusses the process of writing a biography about his father, who pitched for a Japanese-Canadian team in the early 1900s. It’s an interesting story of discovery and family roots that transcends nationality. In the end, the book, titled “Bankuba Asahi-gun” (The Vancouver Asahi), by Ted Y. […]
Tagged as: Japanese baseball
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September 17, 2008
I’ll be doing my on Q&A with Frommer soon, but in the meantime, here’s one from The Baseball Toaster with the author of Remembering Yankee Stadium.
Tagged as: Harvey frommer
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September 15, 2008
The “Getting ‘Iggy wit’ it” blog posted this entry about the late Jules Tygiel, author of several books on Jackie Robinson and baseball history.
Tagged as: Jule Tigiel
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September 15, 2008
TransPacific Radio offers this audio interview with Gordon, co-author of Haunted Baseball: Ghosts, Curses, Legends and Eerie Events, with Mickey Bradley.
Tagged as: Dan Gordon
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September 15, 2008
Trying to figure out why The New York Times published this piece about Don Olson, author of Bambi’s Bombers: The First Time Around, about the 1978 team, which Olson wrote in 1985. The only reason I can think of is that baseball loves anniversaries. I could point to to any number of books heralding the […]
Tagged as: Milkwaukee Brewers
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September 11, 2008
Stephen Wong, author of Smithsonian Baseball: Inside the World’s Finest Private Collections, appears on Bloomberg TV in a three-segment on baseball memorabilia, as reported on Sportscollectorstoday.com. Part One Part Two Part Three Google Books carries this extensive preview of the exquisite volume.
Tagged as: Sports memorabilia
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September 3, 2008
Harvey Frommer’s tarvels in the baseball world have been just as extensive as that other Frommer guy’s. Gelf.com features him in this recent profile highlighting his new book on Yankee Stadium. And could someone tell what the rush to publish is all about? There are several books on the old ballpark, but the fact is, […]
Tagged as: Harvey frommer, Yankee Stadium
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September 1, 2008
From East Windup Chronicles, a blog that covers Asian baseball, this interview with the author of Wally Yonamine: The Man who Changed Japanese Baseball.
Tagged as: Japanese baseball, Wally Yonamine
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August 27, 2008
Asinof, author of the watershed book about the Black Sox scandal, died June 10. In this piece from BaseballLibrary.com, Gene Carney pays tribute to his friend and mentor. Carney is author of Burying the Black Sox, one of several volumes on the events surrounding the 1919 World Series and its aftermath.
Tagged as: baseball authors, Eliot Asinof
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August 19, 2008
Another book about the Yankees? Why not. This one, though, focuses on the beginnings of the juggernaut squad that ran roughshod over baseball from 1949-53. The profile of Frank Strauss ran in the Danbury (CT) News-Times. He will be appearing at the Kent Memorial Library on Aug. 23. Google books runs substantial “preview” of Strauss’ […]
Tagged as: Frank Strauss, New York Yankees
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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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