Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
1964: Sandy Koufax tosses his third no-hitter. Koufax, by Koufax with Ed Linn (1966) 1968: Don Drysdale, Koufax’s long-time teammate, throws his sixth consecutive shutout, en route to 58 2/3 straight innings without allowing a run. Don Drysdale: Up and In: The Life of a Dodgers Legend, by Mark Whicker (2025) […]
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In 1982, Cal Ripken Jr. begins his streak of 2,632 consecutive games, a record that will never be broken. He went 0-2 with a walk in a 6-0 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. The Only Way I Know, by Ripken and Mike Bryan (1997) Play Baseball the Ripken Way: The Complete Illustrated Guide to […]
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On this date, in 1981, Ron Darling of Yale faced off against Frank Viola of St. John’s. Darling pitched 11 innings of no-hit ball, striking out 16, only to lose, 1-0, in the 12th. The Complete Game: Reflections on Baseball, Pitching, and Life on the Mound, by Darling (2009) Game 7, 1986: Failure and Triumph […]
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Rickey Henderson becomes the third player — joining Ted Williams and Willie McCovey — to hit home runs in four decades. Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original, by Howard Bryant (2022) Off Base: Confessions of a Thief, by Henderson with John Shea (1992) Born this date: David Wells Perfect I’m […]
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Recently received a copy of On This Day in Baseball History: a Day-By-Day Account of Baseball’s Most Indelible Moments, by something called the “Baseball Time Machine.” This gave me an idea for some more content for the blog. (Years ago I used to do “Happy Birthday” entries for players with books by or about them. […]
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Recently received a copy of On This Day in Baseball History: a Day-By-Day Account of Baseball’s Most Indelible Moments, by something called the “Baseball Time Machine.” This gave me an idea for some more content for the blog. (Years ago I used to do “Happy Birthday” entries for players with books by or about them. […]
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When I was the manager of the Brooklyn College baseball team back in 19xx, we had a deaf player named Dave Kaplan (no relation). He was a quiet, studious guy. Not a great player, but solid enough. He was only with the team for one year but I recall one scary incident when we were […]
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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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I’ve always enjoyed books that look at the game from an “outside” point of view. That’s why I’m drawn to those titles that look at such diverse topics as baseball and philosophy or baseball and film. So it was kind of a natural when I discovered The Ancient Wisdom of Baseball: Lessons for Life and […]
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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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From The New York Times by George Vecsey: “Fay Vincent, a lawyer who presided over Major League Baseball as its eighth commissioner during a time when it was shaken by labor strife, the first shadows of steroid use and, quite literally, a powerful earthquake that interrupted the 1989 World Series, died on Saturday in Vero […]
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What do Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabbathia, and Billy Wagner all have in common? Oh, yeah, sure, they were all just elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. But wait, there’s more. That’s right; they’ve all written memoirs. Ichiro’s book was published in 2004. There are other books about him, including The Meaning of Ichiro: […]
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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 […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
One of the true characters of the game, Bob Uecker, has died at the age of 90. Here’s his obituary by Richard Sandomir in The New York Times and an article from ESPN. As a reminder that you’re an ex-player much longer than a player, Uecker turned a poor playing career (.200, 14 homers, 74 […]
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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
