Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
♦ The Minnesota Spokesman Record, an African-America newspaper, posted this review of They Played for the Love of the Game: Untold Stories of Black Baseball in Minnesota, published by Frank M. White. ♦ The Lincoln (NE) Journal Star provided this piece on Roger Angell‘s memoir, This Old Man: All in Pieces. I still maintain this […]
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Spoiler alert: This entry will discuss the end of The Quitter, which I blogged about in the previous entry. On the other hand, I consider this as saving you a few bucks and/or 90 minutes of your valuable time. You’re welcome. Against my better judgment, I watched The Quitter to its stunning conclusion. I have […]
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As I said before, I’ll watch just about any movie that has baseball as one of the key words in its description. But that doesn’t mean I’ll watch it ’til the end. Life’s too short. I came across The Quitter by accident when I checked what my local public TV station was airing for the […]
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It’s widely agreed that baseball movies as a rule don’t do well either at the box office or with critics. Sure there are exceptions — Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, and the original Bad News Bears immediately come to mind. But by and large, meh. Case in point: I recently watched a MLB Network presentation […]
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Next to baseball and books (and, of course, baseball books), I enjoy learning about what goes on behind the scenes in movies. That’s why I enjoy the I Was There Too podcast hosted by Matt Gourley, which features interviews with actors who may not have been the stars of the films in which they appeared, […]
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Received several e-mails in response to the theme behind my “review” a couple of weeks ago on the Kevin Costner vehicle For Love of the Game. They were close, but they wouldn’t pass muster on my favorite show Jeopardy, so …, The correct answer: What is the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles […]
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Fastball, the acclaimed new documentary film, celebrates the game’s signature delivery and headlines the 10th Annual Baseball Hall of Fame Film Festival Sept. 25-27 in Cooperstown. All films will be shown in the Hall of Fame’s Bullpen Theater. Produced by National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Board member Thomas Tull (the producer of 42), […]
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Note: There’s a hidden message here marking a fairly important anniversary. See if you can figure it out. I had to take a few liberties, but I hope I’ll be forgiven in the form of an autographed copy of 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die plus the bonus checklist to the first […]
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Maybe I should make it “2L2W,” along the lines of W2W4 (what to watch for, for the uncool out there). After reading his spot-on critique of the Sunday ESPN Game of the Week between the Mets and Nationals in today’s New York Times, I exchanged a few emails with sports media columnist Richard Sandomir. During […]
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Happy to hear the news that Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, by Jonathan Eig, will be turned into a feature movie. From the New York Post of July 17: George Steinbrenner’s grandson, Robert Molloy, will be part of a program Friday on the grounds of the former Yankee Stadium. Molloy is […]
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NOTE: I have been posting these things long enough now that a few have commented that the introductory section isn’t necessary anymore. But I’m leaving it in because, to paraphrase Joe DiMaggio when asked why he played so hard all the time, there may be people who’ve never read the best-seller entries before. So on […]
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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
Throwback Thursday (aka, links dump)
September 10, 2015 · 1 comment
Since I posted the first of these on a Thursday, which is known on social media as a time of reflection, I thought to make it a regular thing under this rubric. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get. (Actually, I never understood […]
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