Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
See here for a headnote and explanation. Back to earth, so to speak and with all due respect. #32: Jordan Montgomery Has been around since breaking in with the Yankees in 2017, joining the Cardinals in a trade late last year. #33: Kyle Farmer “Kyle batted .394 across a 29-game stretch from mid-May to mid-June […]
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See here for a headnote and explanation. #27: Mike Trout Another player whose stature would have earned him a “zero” on his card in another generation. There’s a fascinating site by SportTrac that keeps tabs on, among other things, time spent on the Injury List (you may have heard by now that Shohei Ohtani (#17) […]
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See here for a headnote and explanation. Fanatics — which bought out Topps — recently posted an offering for a complete factory sealed box set for 2023. Here are the details: Base Cards (660 Subjects) – Base cards from Topps Baseball Series 1 & Series 2: 660 base cards, 5 rookie cards, 5 base card […]
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See here for a headnote and explanation. The mother lode. When we used to collect cards by the pack, to borrow from Forrest Gump, it was always an adventure. Life was like a box of chocolates; you never know what you were going to get. You might get a Mickey Mantle, but he would be […]
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See here for a headnote and explanation. A few years ago, I was called for jury duty. I don’t know how it works where you are, but in my little corner of New Jersey, there’s a lot of sitting around waiting. I decided to put my time to good use by studying a few of […]
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See here for a headnote an explanation. I don’t know what I was thinking. Doing one card a day for more than 600 cards will take almost a couple of years. Ain’t nobody got time for that. So by doing five a day, I can be done by the end of the year. So without […]
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Because you can keep cards on your bookshelf. Headnote: I don’t know why I keep doing it. Force of habit I guess. As I pointed out in an entry about Mets cards, The way it worked back then, Topps would release seven series of about 132 cards each beginning in March or April. Once the […]
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Every now and then there’s Facebook post featuring a baseball card, whether it highlights a player or event. I was in my basement and came across this, which led me down a rabbit hole. Surf came out with booklets like this for several teams; this one in particular — which covers the Mets from 1962 […]
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Every now and then I think of what might have been. I paid for my wife’s engagement ring with the money I received by selling my 1968 Topps set. A good investment. People of my generation know what other goodies came with the cards at a time when it was rare to just buy a […]
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♦ Soon to be a major motion picture? “For Maggi, 1st MLB hit proves ‘you can do anything’” ♦ The ReviewGeek judges Cross Game, by Mitsuru Adachi, among the best sport mangas. ♦ Speaking of the late Vin Scully, how will you do on this quiz about baseball broadcasters from the Chicago Sun-Times? Warning: it […]
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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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Early on, it looks like the big book is Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball’s Brightest Minds Created Sports’ Biggest Mess, by Evan Drellich. Numerous reviews and features on the Astros’ cheating scandal include “New book on Houston’s sign-stealing scandal illuminates backstory to Cardinals hacking case” from the St. Louis Post Dispatch (paywall); “Reporter who […]
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It’s been a rough couple of weeks. We lost four players, three of whom were from my own “golden age” of fandom. Frank Thomas (died at age 93 on Jan. 16) was one of the few bright spots for the 1962 Mets, clubbing 34 home runs, a mark that stood until Dave Kingman’s 36 in […]
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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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Used to be around this time of year you could look forward to the baseball annuals from Street & Smith, Athlon, Lindy’s, and a host of other magazine publishers. Of course, back in the day there were many others put out by the likes of The Sporting News, Major League Baseball, Bill Mazeroski, with Baseball […]
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As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, this from Movieguide on the best movies to watch to mark the occasion, including the Jackie Robinson biopic, 42. Here are a few entries I posted back around the time it came out: The cast of 42: You be the judge 42 Overview Bookshelf Review: 42 […]
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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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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
