Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
I’ve decided to bow to the times and include separate lists for e-books and audio books. Be aware that while many titles also appear in print versions, pretty much anyone can produce an e-book these days, so I’m not going to comment at all about the quality. As far as the audio goes, I’m a […]
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Spitball — “The Literary baseball Magazine” — recently announced the slate of finalists for the 2016 CASEY Award: The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports by Jeff Passan The Baseball Whisperer: A Small-Town Coach Who Shaped Big League Dreams by Michael Tackett Bucky F*cking Dent (novel) by David Duchovny Game […]
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We’re getting to the time of year when spring training is about a month away and publishers are warming up as well. The bulk of baseball titles won’t be released until after opening day, but the handful of glossy magazines, which seem to be dwindling year by year, will be on newsstands shortly. Last week […]
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Hi, there, been awhile. Allow me to introduce… I won’t go that far. Yeah, you know, summertime and all. Have actually been doing some non-baseball reading (I know, right?) but have been trying to get back into the swing of things. Based on the disappointment of receiving the annual report on 501 Baseball Books Fans […]
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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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The “poet laureate”/PA announcer for the Red Sox was the guest for the “Not My Job” segment of last week’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, which was broadcast from the Wang Theater in the City Performing Arts Center in Boston. You can read the transcript or listen to Flavin — along with host Peter Sagal, […]
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A fair share of the recent Cooperstown Baseball Symposium considered myriad aspects of Casey at the Bat, which celebrates its 125th anniversary this month. The esteemed sportswriter Frank Deford was the keynote speaker for the event. Deford contributed a speculative article, “Huge Commotion in Mudville” to the July 18, 1988 issue of Sports Illustrated. Shortly […]
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Since I write a weekly Torah haiku as part of my many functions at the New Jersey Jewish News, I thought I’d give some props to Diane Firstman, who blogs at the thoughtful and often “out there” Value Over Replacement Grit for her season preview haikus posted at ESPN.com. Brewers BrewCrew is Hartless And Gamel […]
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Literary birthday greetings: 1953 – Dan Quisenberry, pitcher; All-Star (d. 1998) On Days Like This: Poems, by Quisenberry, Helicon Nine Editions, 1998. Also on this date: 1905 – In Lynn, Massachusetts, Rube Waddell prevents a fire by carrying a burning stove out of a store and throwing it into a snow bank. Three days later […]
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On this date: 1893 – The first recorded version of Casey at the Bat, as recited by Russell Hunting, hits the music charts. DeWolf Hopper’s more famous version will not be released until October 1906. 1969 – Attorney Bowie Kuhn is named commissioner, succeeding Spike Eckert. Kuhn receives a one-year contract paying him $100,000. Major […]
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Not much on poetry (although I do a weekly Haiku for my newspaper), but every once in awhile I get the urge, especially experimenting with newly-discovered (for me) forms. So here’s my lament, which appears Bardball.net. It’s just a tad bit dated, given recent financial news, but what the heck… Reyes gone. Life goes […]
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Since I wasn’t on the What’s on Second Internet radio show this week, I had to get my “me” fix in somehow. My ode to [now former] Mets pitcher Ollie Perez was included in Bardball.com’s 2010’s Greatest Hits!, a collection of baseball poetry. So it’s Frost, Longfellow, Kaplan. End of story. That’s all you need. […]
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With apologies to Franklin Pierce Adams: These are the saddest words Mets fans could hear: “Invested with Madoff — we’re broke.” Try to deny, but the answer’s quite clear. “Invested with Madoff — we’re broke.” Major League Baseball lent millions in cash. More dough? “You kidding? That’s it from our stash.” The new baseball season […]
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is available on Amazon.com,
In my most recent "day job," I was the sports and features editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper, where I hosted another blog. Busy, busy, busy.
I did a profile piece on the award-winning cartoonist Arnold Roth and he was nice enough to "immortalize" me.
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 (Massive links dump, continued)
April 23, 2015
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. As a reminder, I highly recommend Pocket as a way to hold onto links you come that you want to keep. Unlike bookmarks, […]
Tagged as: Ball Four, baseball poems, Carter Capps, Derek Jeter, ForeWord magazine, Jim Bouton, Montreal Expos, New York Yankees
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