Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
I no longer subscribe to the print version of SI, but I do pick up the occasional copy (which is kind of silly since the cost of four or five newsstand editions is roughly equivalent to a deep-discount subscription). The annual “Where Are They Now” is one of them. The editors usually do a good […]
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Given the draft of the script. I’ll watch anything about baseball. Cartoons, documentaries, lousy films (Jackie Robinson was a great ballplayer, but a poor actor). But this draft of the aborted Brad Pitt vehicle would sorely try my patience (Groucho Marx: “Don’t mind if I do. You must try mine sometime.”). Moneyball, the non-fiction neo-classic […]
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I must admit, I agree with the SF Chronicle’s Gwen Knapp in her column where she avers that the book was not meant to be a feature film. In fact, the fate of the movie might have been more dramatic than any material “Moneyball” could have provided. What would have constituted the big moments in […]
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We so much for that. It seems that the screen version of Moneyball, which was all set to begin filming, has been canned, according to this story in Variety. The move came after Pascal read a rewrite that [Steven] Soderbergh did to Steven Zaillian’s script and found it very different from the earlier scripts she […]
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A new documentary about the late Tigers pitcher is set to make its debut, appropriately enough, in Detroit. More on the project.
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Because you can frame the ticket stubs and put them on the bookshelf…Or simply the book, The Year the Yankees Lost First The Pennant, by Douglas Wallop, on which the musical was based. So, a remake of Damn Yankees, starring Jim Carrey as the Devil and Jake Gyllenhaal as “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo?” Seems […]
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If Neil Leifer’s new football book is out of your league, consider Gandhi at the Bat. The short “mockumentary” by Stephanie Argy and Alec Boehm, based on an original short story by Chet Williamson, won the Award for Excellence in Filmmaking at the Baseball Hall of Fame Film Festival in September for excellence “in direction, […]
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In this corner, Kevin Costner. And in this corner, Kevin Costner. And the winnah, according to the Angels blog on the OC Register Web site, is ___.
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Remember The Bad News Bears (the original one, not the disaster with Billy Bob Thornton)? Of course you do, it was a “revolutionary” film in that it presented kids as kids, not some Disneyworld animatronic beings. Now how about, Hardball, starring Keanu Reeves as a gambling addict sentenced to coach an inner city little league […]
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NPR’s Fresh Air replayed this May 2007 interview with Costner to mark the release of his latest movie, Mr. Brooks, on DVD. The interviewer is with Dave Davies. Costner discusses his love for the game (not coincidentally the title of his trilogy of baseball films; and no, The Upside of Anger, in which he plays […]
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Written by George Vecsey, narrated by Alan Nebelthau (unabridged) In a Fall 2006 feature I did for Bookreporter.com, I wrote: Veteran columnist George Vecsey offers a quick recap of historical highlights of the national pastime in BASEBALL: A HISTORY OF AMERICA’S FAVORITE GAME. The slim volume — a mere 250-plus pages — barely touches on […]
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Prompted by this review of Jonathan Mahler’s best-seller, and after finally having finished watching the miniseries, I have come away with a new appreciation for the televised version. Several weeks ago, I was skeptical about the project. I amend my criticism somewhat. Platt was an excellent Steinbrenner and most of the series depicted the difficulties […]
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Author Studs Terkel recently celebrated his 95th birthday. While he wrote no books about baseball, per se, he did portray another literary legend, sportswriter Hugh Fullerton, in the movie version of Eight Men Out. (Director John Sayles played Ring Lardner.) The long-time Cubs’ fan offered an observation on the delight of afternoon games as a […]
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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
* Catching up, Part 1
April 8, 2008
There’s a lot of material that’s fallen by the wayside as I try to keep this blog fresh with the latest in baseball book publishing information. But in the words of the revered philosopher, Regis Philbin, “I’m only one man!” So I’m using this space to try to catch up. Some of the items might […]
Tagged as: Audio, baseball books, Bobble heads, collections, hobbies, Memorabilia, Nostalgia, Sportswriting
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