Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
December 26, 2009
Like an old stand up comedian, former Yankees pitcher Fritz Peterson will tell you it’s good to be here..It’s good to be anywhere. Peterson, who might be as famous for the fact that he and Yankee teammate Mike Kekich swapped families (yes, families. Houses and pets, too) as much as his skill on the hill, […]
Tagged as: Fritz Peterson
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November 13, 2009 · 3 comments
Of all the sub-genres of baseball books, my favorite is are the coffee table editions. Usually published as “gift books,” they are among the most well-produced, handsome, and eclectic titles available each year. This year’s “leader” has to be Baseball Americana: Treasures from the Library of Congress (Harper Collins). It combines the best of all […]
Tagged as: Baseball Americana, Frank Ceresi, Library of Congress
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November 11, 2009
Today is Veteran’s Day and I always like to give a shout-out to the men and women who served. So I thought it appropriate to take a look at a few of the recent books that consider the players — both famous and unheralded — who gave up so much during WW II. In a […]
Tagged as: Baseball in wartime, Ira Nerkow, Lou Brissie, Veterans Day, World War II
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November 11, 2009
Gary Bedingfield, a 46-year-old British citizen, hosts the excellent baseballinwartime.com, a site devoted to ballplayers who served during WW II. His new book, Baseball’s Dead of World War II: A Roster of Professional Players Who Died in Service, has recently been published by McFarland. In an e-mail interview, Bedingfield describes how he came to his […]
Tagged as: Baseball in wartime, Gary Bedingfield, Veterans Day, World War II
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October 18, 2009 · 4 comments
If the Internet is good for nothing else, it brought podcasts into the world. The ability to hear so many quality programs should make the radio and TV industry just as worried as those in the newspaper industry. Some are “on-demand” versions of programs broadcast on regular TV and radio. Among my favorites: Wait Wait […]
Tagged as: Hang Up and Listen, Josh Levin, Mike Pesca, Slate, sports podcast, Stefan Fatsis
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October 1, 2009
This fall there are three books that take a look at the American league Boston team in the World Series. One goes all the way back to 1912, the first “greatest” fall classic, as written by the NY Post‘s Mike Vacarro. The other two are slightly more contemporary: the 1975 meeting of the Red Sox […]
Tagged as: Cincinnati Reds, Joe Posnanski
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August 26, 2009
I conducted this interview with the author of Praying for Gil Hodges for Bookreporter.com in 2005. * * * Bookreporter.com baseball specialist Ron Kaplan interviewed Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Oliphant about PRAYING FOR GIL HODGES, his bittersweet memoir about growing up as a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the joy of celebrating their only […]
Tagged as: Brooklyn Dodgers, Gil Hodges, Thomas Oliphant
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July 28, 2009
Apropos of the interview I did with Favorite PASTimes, here’s a profile on Troy Soos, author of the Mickey Rawlings series of historical baseball mysteries, I did for the Summer 1998 edition of The Mystery Review, a defunct Canadian publication. * * * The manicured grass of the baseball field doesn’t grow under Troy Soos’ […]
Tagged as: baseball fiction, Boston Red Sox, Brooklyn Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, Detroit Tigers, Troy Soos
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July 24, 2009 · 3 comments
One of the saddest books your likely to read this year and, hopefully, for the foreseeable future, is S.L. Price’s Heart of the Game: Life, Death and Mercy in Minor League America.
Tagged as: Mike Coolbaugh, S.L. Price
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July 18, 2009
That’s Barra, not Berra, although the confusion would be easy to understand. Barra is the author, Berra is the subject of this new biography of the Yankees’ Hall of Fame catcher. The writer — whose work has appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal and on-line on Salon.com, crafted this serious-yet-entertaining profile on […]
Tagged as: Allen Barra, Yogi Berra
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July 9, 2009 · 2 comments
Larry Tye, author of the critically-acclaimed new biography of Satchel Paige, is a busy (and happy) man these days, making the rounds of TV and radio shows and enjoying reading the favorable reviews as they pile up. He was gracious enough to take some time from his hectic schedule to answer a few questions from […]
Tagged as: Larry Tye, Satchel Paige
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June 29, 2009
Tuls World published this review/profile of S.L. Price’s consideration Heart of the Game: Life, Death, and Mercy in Minor League America, the story of Mike Coolbaugh, who was killed by a line drive foul while coaching first abse for the Tulsa Drillers.
Tagged as: Mike Coolbaugh, minor leagues
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June 11, 2009
Here’s the audio interview with Zev Chafets, author of Cooperstown Confidential. http://rksbaseballbookshelf.wordpress.com/files/2009/06/zevchafets_raw.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Tagged as: Baseball Hall of Fame, PED, steroids, Zev Chafets
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June 11, 2009 · 2 comments
The cover of Cooperstown Confidential: Heroes, Rogues, and The Inside Story of The Baseball Hall of Fame features four circa 1920 players with their heads cropped off. How appropriate, since a lot of what Zev Chafets has to say turns conventional wisdom on its head. Chafets, the founding managing editor of the Jerusalem Report and […]
Tagged as: Baseball Hall of Fame, PED, setroids, Zev Chafets
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May 23, 2009
Gabriel Schechter has, in my estimation (and his), the dream job. Working at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown as a researcher in the library, the chance to be surrounded by the game in a small-town setting, a Norman Rockwell experience, as he put it in our recent conversation for The Bookshelf. Schechter recently […]
Tagged as: Gabriel Schechter, New York Yankees
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Would baseball fans want a world in which all the calls on the field could be made by Questec-type devices or the Cyclops machines used in tennis? Are umpires part of the game or outside it? Are they, as one baseball personality suggested, pieces of human equipment, like bases: necessary but not thought about that […]
Tagged as: Bruce Weber, umpires, umpiring
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April 8, 2009
When it comes to the national pastime, female athletes find many doors closed despite laws designed to afford them equal opportunities. Marilyn Cohen chronicles these issues in her new book, No Girls in the Clubhouse: The Exclusion of Women from Baseball (McFarland). Although girls and women have played the game since the mid-19th century, their […]
Tagged as: Marilyn Cohen, women in baseball
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April 2, 2009
A veteran of the minor league beat, Lisa Winston has been a writer, reporter, columnist, and multimedia correspondent for such outlets as USA Today, Baseball/ Sports Weekly and, most recently, MLB.com. She is a frequent guest on radio and TV sports talk shows around the country, and was the original host of the Fox News […]
Tagged as: Baseball Honeymoon, Lisa Winston, minor league baseball
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March 27, 2009
Jeff Pearlman, author of the damning new biography on Roger Clemens, took a few minutes to discuss his project with The Bookshelf. Pearlman’s latest — The Rocket That Fell to Earth: Roger Clemens and the Rage for Baseball Immortality (Harper) — is a frightening tale of a man who is at once on top of […]
Tagged as: Jeff Pearlman, Roger Clemens
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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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* But seriously, folks…
August 4, 2009 · 4 comments
Had a good time at the SABR convention in DC. It was nice too meet so many folks who are just as nuts (if not more so) than me. Being the bookworm that I am, it was especially nice hanging out with the writers, many of whom were peddling their products in the vendors’ room. […]
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