Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The director of A League of Their Own recently published My Mother Was Nuts. Naturally the cover caught my eye. So now I feel I have to read the damn thing, just to find out why — of all the things she could have worn for the book art, she decided to go with catcher’s […]
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Two classic American pastimes come together Friday, Sept. 28, as the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum presents the Seventh Annual Baseball Film Festival with opening ceremonies in Cooperstown. The festival continues on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 29-30. The first-pitch event will feature a special screening of Knuckleball at 7 p.m. Friday in the […]
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Friday is the traditional movie review day in the press (anyone remember when there were two release days? Movies used to come out on Fridays and Wednesdays). Here’s the NY Times‘ assessment, by A.O. Scott. Upshot: The trouble with baseball movies like “Trouble With the Curve” is that they tempt reviewers to reach for hackneyed […]
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I don’t have high hopes for this one, but is is a baseball movie, so I’m sure I’ll see it (although I never got around to Moneyball while it was in general release). But the reviews for TWTC are starting to come in and they’re mixed. Latinos Post describes it as “Generic Hollywood Fare Trying […]
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The Atlantic posted this slideshow of sports movies with improbable story lines. I know you’re supposed to suspend disbelief at the cinema but even these stretch the limit, several of which have to do with pretending to be a different gender to be allowed to play the sport in question. The baseball films include such […]
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I think I’m fairly up on pop culture, especially TV and movies. so when I saw a commercial for this upcoming Clint Eastwood/Amy Adams/Justin Timberlake baseball movie, I had to scratch my head. How is it I haven’t heard about this one, which is set to open on Sept. 21? Moneyball got lots of buzz […]
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Frank, not Buzz. Entries are invited for the 2012 Baseball Film Festival at the Hall of Fame. From the press release: Baseball and the movies grew up together in America, becoming a part of the fabric of the nation that made both famous. Their shared history is on display every day at the National Baseball […]
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If you thought it was a stretch to make a feature film out of Michael Lewis’ non-fiction baseball classic Moneyball, what say you about Buzz Bissinger’s Three Nights in August, which considers a 2003 series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs? According to this piece on variety.com, Billy Bob Thornton will play the […]
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A periodic attempt to catch up on recent items and links. ♦ I love this entry by SB Nation’s Grant Brisbee on the 17-inning game between the Red Sox and Orioles on May 6 because it’s so damn literary, comparing the sportswriter’s hyperbole to the epic storyteller. ♦ And this one brief from The Hardball […]
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This week’s podcast is a little different. Ari Alexenberg is no author (although as a pitcher I’m sure his “authored” some great games over his long amateur career). Rather he is the subject of Coming Home, a documentary currently under production. The film tells the story of his participation in the only season of the […]
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(Kids, ask your parents/grandparents.) Rob Neyer, baseball expert and cinemaphile, noted on SB Nation that Sunday would have been William Frawley‘s 125th birthday. Frawley, a hard-core baseball fan, is perhaps best known for his role as Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy (and later My Three Sons), but he was a veteran actor dating back […]
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It’s kind of neat to read critiques about baseball media from sources you don’t expect. Like this review of the film version of Moneyball from TheHindu.com. Unfortunately, the picture came up empty at the Oscars. Oh, well.
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Well, perhaps not the real Sportsphone, which was popular back in the 1980s. For the price of a call, you could hear updated recorded messages about what was going on on the diamond, the court, the field, etc. And to be technical about it, the How to Do Everything podcast isn’t technically NPR. However it […]
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Robinson was born this date in 1919, which means he would have been 93 today. Sadly, he passed away almost 40 years ago, way too young. It isn’t necessary to repeat all the sacrifices he made, all the doors he opened. One would hope everyone in this country — baseball fan or not — would […]
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The nominations for the Academy Awards were announced this morning and Moneyball came away with a “cycle” of sorts. The unlikely cinematic version of Michael Lewis’ best-seller is up for Best Picture, Best Actor (Brad Pitt), Best Supporting Actor (Jonah Hill), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, and Stan Chervin). UPDATE: Moneyball also […]
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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
Bits and pieces
February 10, 2012 · 2 comments
Haven’t done one of these in awhile, but I have a bit of backlog I’d like to clear, so here goes. * We’ll have to agree to disagree. One card collector can’t stand the new 2012 Topps series. Another calls it the best one yet. What do you think? * LibraryJournal.com posted this piece reviewing […]
Tagged as: Casey Award, Dirk Hayhurst, Hank Greenberg, Jim Brosnan, Joe DiMaggio, Michael Lewis, The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran, Year The Yankees Lost the Pennant
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