Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
This card from the 1984 Fleer set shows the Blue Jays pitcher singing the Canadian National Anthem prior to a game against the Texas Rangers. The questions include: On what night of the season did Jackson sing? Who is the Rangers’ catcher, seen in the background? The Rangers’ catchers that season included Jim Sundberg (we […]
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That’s what it’s coming to these days. Topps is undoubtedly looking for a new audience, according to these recent pieces in The New York Times and Time magazine (both of which use the same photo to illustrate the story). According to the Time story, [T]oday, as Angry Birds and iPads beckon, the baseball card has […]
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This list appeared on a SABR post and it seemed like a good resource, so I’m recreating it (sans links) here, FYI: Bloom, John, A House of Cards: Baseball Card Collecting and Popular Culture (Univ. of Minn. Press, 1997) Boyd, Brendan and Harris, Fred, The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book […]
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Believe it or not, today is Opening Day for Major League Baseball. The Seattle Mariners defeated the Oakland Athletics, 3-1 in 11 innings. In Japan. Sigh. Call me old-fashioned, but I remember when the Cincinnati Reds — the first professional team, back in 1869 — always had the honor of playing the first game of […]
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Another story about the death of the baseball card industry, via CBS News Sunday Morning. The segment features Dave Jamieson, author of Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession. (Click here for the Bookshelf interview with Jamieson.) Back in the day, before they became part of an investment portfolio, kids used to stick […]
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He’s not getting any younger. This post on Cardboard Icons may not the the most illuminating (all due respect to the blogger), although it does explain how some card companies to not have the blessings of Major League Baseball and therefore cannot show any official logos (i.e., they didn’t pay any licensing fees) . But […]
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Via Bruce Markusen at The Hardball Times.
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But savvy baseball cards buffs like Night Owl Cards caught them. To be fair, back int he day when the company released one series at a time, instead of all at one (kids, ask your parents), they often airbrushed logos onto the hats and/or unis of players who had been traded during the season. In […]
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When you’re a young kid, you don’t have any real concept of age. One of the first things you say to a new contemporary is, “I’m seven; how old are you?” When you go to camp, you think the counselors are adults, even though they’re only a few years your senior. But now that I’m […]
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The latest from Hardball Times’ Bruce Markusen’s “Baseball Card Mystery” series: Lenny “Len” Randle. Enjoy.
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I don’t know if the young collectors nowadays recite this mantra as they go through their friends cards, but back in the day… Gary Cieradkowski, the artist behind the Infinite Baseball Card Set, is having a finite sale of his work. As I’ve written in the past, these are exquisite and imaginative little works of […]
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There are plenty of outlets that will take a photo of you and turn it into a ersatz baseball card like this one I had done on a trip to Cooperstown back in the late 1980s: None, however, will do it up in as artistic and classy a manner as Gary Cieradkowski, creator of the Infinite […]
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When I was a kid, the back of typical non-star card included info about the players hobbies (“Tim likes to read”; “Bob hunts inn the off-season.” Here’s one for former Major Leaguer Jim Piersall, who suffered from mental illness in the early 1950s and wrote about his experiences in the best-seller, Fear Strikes Out. Was […]
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From Abebooks.com, a new twist on the old theme of losing one’s prized baseball card: Using it as a place keeper but forgetting to remove it when selling the volume to the local used book store. THE SPORTING “A Mickey Mantle rookie baseball card. It was the original 1952 Topps #311 baseball card and not […]
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The Infinite Baseball Card Set Blog posted links to a few reviews about the fun new publication, including that of the Bookshelf.
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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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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 blog 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
