Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Jackie Robinson on Life After Baseball, edited by Michael G. Long. Syracuse University Press, 2013. Some former athletes botch attempts to remain relevant after their playing days are over. They offer opinions that, while certainly their right to have and express, do little to offer insight (or interest) as to what kind of people they […]
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All I know about Yankton, South Dakota, was that it was an element in one of my all-time favorite TV shows, Deadwood. Al Swearengen: Bloodletting on my premises that I ain’t approved I take as a f***ing affront. It puts me off my feed. Hearst:How do we know when you are off your feed? Al […]
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Our long national holiday being over, it’s time to get back to work. Had the opportunity to finish (and re-finish) a couple of baseball books over the last few days. I found Doc, the memoirs of fallen super-ace Dwight Gooden, a frustrating experience. On the one hand I thought it was a great self-assessment of […]
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Nuckolball posted a review of Robert Creamer’s classic bio, Babe: The Legend Comes to Life. These are kind of like mini-reviews, so I’m including Baseball Nation’s piece on “Your favorite baseball books,” which includes, among others, Philip Roth’s The Great American Novel, The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball […]
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The New York Times runs this review of Mike Piazza’s Long Shot. Given that the book was released almost two months ago and they’re just reviewing it now, I won’t give up the hopes that the Times will do something with 501. The review is more of a “what the book’s about” piece than whether […]
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It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but congratulations to Charles P. of Long Island City, winner of the randomly selected, infrequent book giveaway selection, The Might Have Been: A Novel by Joseph Schuster. Next up — and in a quicker fashion, I promise — Mike Piazza’s Long Shot.
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By Mike Piazza with Lonnie Wheeler, Simon and Schuster, 2013. The review appears on Bookreporter.com this week. Here it is for your convenience: If not for a favor to Los Angeles Dodger manager (and family friend) Tommy Lasorda, Mike Piazza would never have been selected in the 1988 baseball draft. As it was, Piazza was […]
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Literary birthday greetings: 1919 – Monte Irvin, outfielder; All-Star, Hall of Famer Nice Guys Finish First: The Autobiography of Monte Irvin, by Irvin and James A. Riley, Carroll & Graf, 1996. 1929 – Syd Thrift, general manager (d. 2006) The Game According to Syd: The Theories and Teachings of Baseball’s Leading Innovator, by Thrift and […]
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Literary birthday greetings: 1942 – Fritz Peterson, pitcher; All-Star Mickey Mantle Is Going To Heaven, by Peterson, Outskirts Press, 2009. The Art of De-Conditioning: Eating Your Way to Heaven, by Peterson, Light Side Books, 2012. Lest we forget: 1956 – Connie Mack, catcher, manager; Hall of Famer (b. 1862) My 66 Years in the Big […]
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Literary birthday greetings: 1895 – Babe Ruth, outfielder; All-Star, Hall of Famer (d. 1948) Previous Babe Ruth birthday entry. Lest we forget: 2007 – Lew Burdette, pitcher; All-Star (b. 1926) Lew Burdette of the Braves, by Gene Schoor, Putnam, 1960. Also on this date: 1934: New York sportswriter and broadcaster Ford Frick is named the […]
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The man responsible — for better or worse — for the astronomical salaries baseball players receive these days, died this morning at the age of 95. He had been battling cancer for more than a year. Miller was one of the most powerful men in sports during his tenure as head of the players union. […]
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♦ Bill Jordan at Baseball Reflections posted this on The Baseball Hall of Shame: The Best of Blooperstown. Upshot: “With the book being built around blurbs, instead of lengthy stories, it is a quick read and would be something that is easy to browse through. One might even call this a good book to read […]
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The baseball “lifer” passed away on Nov. 8 at the age of 95. Here’s the NY Times obit, written by Richard Goldstein. MacPhail published his autobiography — My 9 Innings: An Autobiography of 50 Years in Baseball — in 1989. A new copy goes for about $150 on Amazon. in 2000, G. Richard McKelvey published […]
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♦ The Washington Post published this piece on Tony La Russa’s memoir, One Last Strike: Fifty Years in Baseball, Ten and a Half Games Back, and One Final Championship Season. ♦ Better late than never: It seems the Seattle Post-Intelligencer finally got around to posting a review of Zack Hample’s 2007 publication, Watching Baseball Smarter: […]
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My review of the new Tony La Russa memoir appears on the latest Bookreporter.com and is reprinted for your convenience below: Tony La Russa is a baseball lifer. He began his career in the minors; had an unproductive stint as a major leaguer, batting .199 over six seasons as a utility infielder; and made a […]
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♦ The Atlantic published this piece by Luke Epplin on Tony La Russa’s new book, The Last Strike. The main complaint in the piece seems to be that a) La Russa doesn’t dish the dirt very much; and b) his role as a great strategist may be well-deserved, but too much detail doesn’t make for […]
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The director of A League of Their Own recently published My Mother Was Nuts. Naturally the cover caught my eye. So now I feel I have to read the damn thing, just to find out why — of all the things she could have worn for the book art, she decided to go with catcher’s […]
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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
