Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Looks my complaining hasn’t tailed off over the last decade. I understand that space is limited in book review sections, but when there’s a special “roundup” of sports books and no baseball titles are included, that’s something I can’t ignore. FYI, the “Y U No Love” meme was very popular back in the day. Ask your […]
{ 0 comments }
Well maybe not baseball baseball… Can we go back in time and give Field of Dreams the honor it deserves? Meanwhile, on the radio… Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me remains a “must-listen-to” podcast, despite my “good news/bad news” commute to work. (The good news is that it usually takes less than 20 minutes, as opposed to the 45 […]
{ 0 comments }
I must be getting old. As I was preparing a post about Japanese baseball culture, I referred to the trip I took to that country earlier this year. It was a thrilling two-week experience which included the opportunity to acquire and visit a lot of baseball. But lo and behold, when I went to link […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
It’s a daunting task, following in the footsteps of a legend. The players who came after Mickey Mantle or Ted Williams or Willie Mays didn’t have it easy. They were faulted for not being able to replicate the feats of their predecessors. How unfair. I was thinking about that when I came across this piece in […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Because you can keep them on your bookshelf. Not that I’m a fashion maven, but I never liked the flat brim look. A pet peeve of mine. Kudos to the writers of Reacher.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
I was looking for a post I thought I made about donating 501 to the French Baseball Federation on a trip we took there in 2013 . The rabbit hole I fell into brought up this entry I posted in 2010 which I thought was fun and might be appropriate for these lazy days of […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Last year (where does the time go?) I posted a “Things we Keep” entry about a couple of White Sox yearbooks I bought at a used book store when I was a kid. A few months ago, I received an email from Patrick Dessent of Illinois: I have a question: my grandfather was a White […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
As New Year’s rolls around, one of things you can still count on these days are those “end of the year” recaps. You know, “The Top 10 in…” or “The Best of…” fill-in-the-blank. However, after going through numerous such lists, I was dismayed at how few sports titles, let alone baseball, were included, given the […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
And maybe get a spiritual visit from the former tenant. From the New York Post: “Late sports scribe Roger Angell’s former NYC co-op asks $3M”
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Hard to believe it’s been a month since my last entry. Life, you know? But here’s hoping for a better year ahead. Because people have shorter attention spans these days, there has become a designation for articles that readers just can handle. The shorthand is TLDR: “too long, didn’t read.” That’s a shame. I liken it […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
I posted this to my other blog, The Worried Journalist, this morning. If they can do crossovers on TV and in the comics, I don’t know why I can’t share the entry about Arnold Hano, Don Larsen, Ian Anderson, and serendipity.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Or WHIP? Or some other 21st century stat? Recently picked up the first baseball magazine of the year — Lindy’s Sports Baseball 2021 Preview — and feel it’s already useless. Predictions are a main feature of most of these publications. Problem is, because they are prepared and released weeks before the season starts, they cannot […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
So why can’t the folks at Amazon devise a search function that returns the results asked for? I have been asked to submit nominations for a major baseball book award and wanted a quick reminder of what came out in 2020. Previously, I would simply do an advanced search in the books category with the […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
My baseball library is divided into three main sections: the attic, my basement office, and the rest of the house. I was cleaning the attic yesterday, because what else is there to do? While trying to cull the herd, putting things in boxes to eventually give away or ::shudder:: throw out, I can across a […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
but I was tickled to be included in Bookreporter.com’s “Bookaccino Live” zoom meeting last week with other long-time contributors to the site as it celebrated its 24th anniversary. Not exactly sure how long I’ve been associated with this wonderful group, but it’s gotta be at least 18 years. Since then I’ve done scores of reviews, […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
There’s only one baseball audiobook on my weekly best-seller roundup but while I was putting the entry together I could help but notice: Out of the top 100 audiobooks, 16 have a very similar design, save for the Jenner book in which the author is not facing the camera head on.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The Pandemic Baseball Book Club has just announced a giveaway contest with il premio di tutti i premi. (That’s “the prize of all prizes” for you non-Italian speakers out there. Yes, I’m pretentious.) Just posted on Facebook today so I thought I would share it. The lucky winner of “The Pandemic Baseball Book Club Grand […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Still unsure of what lies ahead for the 2020 season. All it takes is for one team to explode with cases of Covid-19. God forbid it ever comes to this. So on that happy note, humbly submitted for your amusement.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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
Such stuff as dreams are made on
July 14, 2020
With apologies to Shakespeare. I received this link from a high school classmate today about a treasure trove of baseball cards found in the attic of a recently deceased 97-year-old. (Thanks, Terry!) I have fantasies about some friend or colleague telling me a loved one wants to just get rid of a bunch of old […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }