Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Being the cheap bastard that I am, I wait until after Christmas to buy my calendars. The local book chain has them down 50 percent. If I didn’t care about what I get, I could wait another few weeks when they’ll be $1 each. But they had the one I wanted so I’m happy. I’m […]
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Eephus League, the brainchild of Bethany Heck, is an eclectic and imaginative on-line magazine. Next year it will make the leap to a print edition. You can see a sample online here. Judging just by the preview, it looks great. Well-produced, graphically-sharp, and fun! I haven’t seen anything like it since the short-lived 108 a […]
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Arnold Roth was kind enough to create the caricature I use for everything (including my passport photo), so I have him props whenever I can. This comes from his new blog, Humblug.
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Babe Ruth passed away on this date in 1948. Words by Ogden Nash, painting by Graig Kreindler. ‘R’ is for ‘Ruth.’ To tell you the truth, There’s just no more to be said, Just ‘R’ is for ‘Ruth.’
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Combining two themes here to bring you some recent podcasts. * Craig Robinson, author of the new Flip Flop Fly Ball: An Infographic Baseball Adventure (See all Humor Books), was on the July 19 edition of Slate’s Hang Up and Listen. There are several excellent questions about Robinson’s though processes as he comes up with […]
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Took the first part of the vacation last week to work on the book. The next section comes up at the beginning of August as we travel to Boston. We’ll be taking in the Friday night Yankees-Red Sox game (trying to convince my daughter to leave the Jeter jersey at home). But while tooling around […]
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Well, that week off didn’t go exactly as I’d hoped. I really expected to get a lot more done vis-a-vis 501Baseball Books. A trip to the main branch of the NY Public Library turned out to be disappointing although going into the city did give me the opportunity to spend some time with Jay Goldberg, […]
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The painter of historical baseball people and events was the subject of this featurette on the YES Network. And here’s an additional video from about a year ago.
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I have a special affinity for cartoonists and artists. My father was a pretty good art hobbyist who worked on the cheap, using the backs of discarded poster, cardboard, whatever he could scrounge up. Maybe that has something to do with it. Anyway, today we mourn the passing of Bill Gallo, long time cartoonist for […]
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Hall of Famer Eddie Collins was born this date in 1887. Eddie Collins: A Baseball Biography The feature film Eight Men Out featured Bill Irwin in the Collins role. I remember thinking how wonderful a job he did, both as an actor and an athlete, for someone I had heretofore recognized only as a mime/clown. […]
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Since I started blogging about baseball literature and collectibles, I’ve become increasingly enamored with and appreciative of the “art” of the game. Not the way the players perform, but by those who depict those performances through the pencil, the paintbrush, the camera, or any other method. It’s especially rewarding to find “unknown” artists (although they […]
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Baseball and The Simpsons. In the latest episode, Grandpa Abe serves as a guinea pig for a drug that will turn him from grumpy to glad. In order to test the product’s viability, the phrama testers experiment with several variations until the seemingly find the right one. The head of the company wants to make […]
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The name might not be familiar but the pictues are. I just learned that Jurinko, who specialized in baseball art, died recently from pancreatic cancer at the age of 71. There will be a memorial service tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Crestwood/ Perazzo Memorial Chapel, 199 Bleeker Street, Manhattan. Jurinko published The […]
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The National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, located in Commack, NY, opened an exhibit in December in celebration of Sandy Koufax’s 75th birthday. The paintings, photographs, and other bric-a-brac have been assembled by Alan Freedman, director of the Hall into a beautiful paperback volume, Sandy Koufax: 32 at 75. Fans of baseball/sports art will immediately […]
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Following an earlier post about creating a baseball room, I heard from Dave Kaplan, executive director of the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center, who wants to help you get started on the project. The Museum, located on the campus of Montclair State University in Little Falls, NJ, is currently under renovation and is offering […]
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Came across this very neat site by Summer Anne Burton that is pretty much just what it says (or at least it will be someday). Many years ago, newspapers used to published cartoons of ballplayers that included biographical and statistical tidbits. That was then: This is now:
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Congrats to Max Weder, winner of the December Bookshelf prize, Fifty-Nine in ’84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had, by Edward Achorn. By the way, Weder ‘s wife, Jennifer Ettinger, does some lovely baseball art. Visit the Flickr page here and her website here.
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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
