Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Or amazing, or unbelievable. There’s yet another batch of “awards” this year from Major League Baseball: The GIBBYs, short for Greatness in Baseball Yearly awards. That ain’t even good English. Please. How many awards can you give already? These seem to duplicate a lot of honors that have been awarded for years: rookies, batters, starting […]
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The list is in for finalists for the 2013 CASEY Award for “Best Baseball Book of the Year,” as designated by Spitball magazine. Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere, by Lucas Mann Color Blind: The Forgotten Team that Broke Baseball’s Color Line, by Tom Dunkel Going the Distance, by Michael Joyce Heart of […]
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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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Spitball Magazine has selected Paul Dickson’s Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick as the winner of the 2012 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year. Veeck received two first-place votes and one third-place vote, for a near perfect score of five points (low score wins). According to CASEY judge Jack Griener, a Cincinnati attorney and […]
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The Golden Globes doesn’t have a category for books, but if it did I bet Paul Dickson’s Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick would be in contention. As it is, Dickson’s bio was named winner of the 2nd annual SLA (Special Libraries Association) Baseball Caucus Readers’ Choice Award.
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♦ Here’s an oldie but a goodie via eBay: a copy of H. Allen Smith’s classic Rhubarb, about a cat who inherits a baseball team. ♦ The novel was turned into a 1951 feature film starring Ray Milland (who was also the lead in the 1949 baseball comedy It Happens Every Spring), Jan Stirling, Gene […]
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It’s been quite a year for the Mets pitcher. He’s getting a lot of press about being the first knuckleballer to win the Cy Young Award, but I’m guessing he’s also the first NY Times best-selling author to garner the trophy while still an active pitcher.
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Spitball Magazine announced the finalists for the publications annual CASEY award for best baseball book of the year. The titles include: Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan, by Robert K. Fitts Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick, by Paul Dickson Connie Mack: The Turbulent and Triumphant Years, 1915-1931, by […]
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This comes from Spitball Magazine as they prepare for the publication’s 30th annual CASEY Award for best baseball book of the year. You may nominate up to 10 books but only books which you have actually read; no hearsay please. All books to be nominated must carry a 2012 copyright. Only works published as real […]
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Congrats to Scott P. from Rochester, winner of the RKBB Facebook friend random selection. The book this time is the paperback edition of John Thorn’s Baseball in the Garden of Eden. Next up: Hit By Pitch: Ray Chapman, Carl Mays and the Fatal Fastball by Molly Lawless.
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Congrats to Zachary James of Searsboro, Iowa, winner of the RKBB Facebook fan drawing, Curt Smith’s new book is A Talk in the Park: Nine Decades of Baseball Tales from the Broadcast Booth. (Yeah, I know it’s “like,” but that just sounds stupid in context, so I’m gonna keep on going with “fan.”) The next […]
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The nominations for the Academy Awards were announced this morning and Moneyball came away with a “cycle” of sorts. The unlikely cinematic version of Michael Lewis’ best-seller is up for Best Picture, Best Actor (Brad Pitt), Best Supporting Actor (Jonah Hill), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, and Stan Chervin). UPDATE: Moneyball also […]
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Kostya Kennedy, author of 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports, has been selected as winner of the are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2012 CASEY Award, the annual prize of Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine. According to a press release issued by Spitball editor Mike Shannon, 56 received two […]
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After his interview with the veteran writer, Graham Womack at Baseball: Past and Present wonders if there isn’t some way for the Hall of Fame to recognize Creamer’s his contributions. What a great idea. There are several worthy scribes who didn’t work for newspapers (and therefore don’t qualify for the Spink Award, which “or meritorious […]
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is available on Amazon.com,
In my most recent "day job," I was the sports and features editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper, where I hosted another blog. Busy, busy, busy.
I did a profile piece on the award-winning cartoonist Arnold Roth and he was nice enough to "immortalize" me.
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
My heroes have always been writers
September 24, 2013 · 1 comment
There’s a line in the film version of The Natural in which the following exchange occurs between Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) and the unctuous sportswriter Max Mercy (Robert Duvall): Hobbs: Did you ever play ball, Max? Mercy: No, never have. But I make it a little more fun to watch, you see. And after today, […]
Tagged as: Dan Daniel, Leonard Koppett, Murray Chass, Shirly Povich
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