Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
I always wanted a cool nickname. When I was manager of the Brooklyn College baseball team, it was always lazy stuff like “Kap.” When I was a softball instructor at camp in Montreal, it was “Brooks,” for Brooklyn. But NOW… Just noticed this on the spine of the book. They call me…
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Long gone are the days when Topps would post tiny cartoons talking about a player’s unique skill, accomplishment or hobby. But fear not; as long as there are Jumbotrons, we’ll still be able to enjoy these gems.
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Sorry, but no cards for George Washington, top, who played for the Chicago White Sox from 1935-36, or Ezra Lincoln, below, who split his one big league season in 1890 between the Cleveland Spiders and Syracuse Stars.
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Fulfilling your civic duty by serving on a jury certainly has its ups and downs. Suffice it to say I am on a case, the details of which I cannot reveal at this point, and will be shuttling back and forth to the courts for the foreseeable future. The “good news”: the schedule is such […]
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And I along with it. Yes, I’m off to do my civic duty for a couple of days, so I don’t know how often I’ll be able to update the blogs. Given the state of the judicial system, I am looking forward, however, to sitting around the jury room waiting to be picked and catching […]
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Because you can put this on your bookshelf, behind lock and key. because, really, would you play with it? The eBay item of the day: a hand-made baseball tabletop game with an opening bid of $1.2 million. But at least you get “free economy shipping.” Frankly someone who has that kind of money to spend […]
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Brought to you as a public service.
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The bad news? Publishers Weekly published their list of “The Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2013” and 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die didn’t make it. The good news? No other sports books made the list (schadenfreude).
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In 1991, I “auditioned” for a new softball team. I had been playing slow pitch/arc in town but had become a bit bored, so when some old friends from Brooklyn told me about their fast-pitch team in Freehold, I thought I’d give it a shot. In the first at bat of the first day of […]
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When I was young and foolish, I would waste my money on things like Fleer stickers. To be fair, when I was a kid, this didn’t seem like a waste of money. After all these were high quality cloth stickers! Applied to my clothes, these would lead people to believe I was a big leaguer! […]
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This might turn out to be a mistake/waste-of-time, but in an attempt to expand my reach on the web, I have created a BaseballBookshelf “page” (if that’s what they call it) on Reddit. Please visit, add your comments, subscribe, contribute…whatever the hell it is one does there.
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Sorry, was basically out yesterday and unable to blog, but how about that, boys and girls? The Yankees pick up their first Jewish player since Ken Holtzman back in the 1970s. Youkilis signed that 1-year, $12 million deal to play for the Bronx franchise next year. Here’s wishing him good health and good luck. As […]
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Used to be you had to wait until at least February for the first whiff of baseball lit to be available. Not any more. The Hardball Times Annual and The Bill James Handbook are already out an about. Herewith a few reviews: The Handbook, by SB Nation, ESPN’s Sweet Spot. HBT: Not so much a […]
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From our friends at Baseballmeme.com:
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This is the first time, unless I just haven’t been paying attention in prior years, that sabermetrics has become such a prominent feature when discussing who should win the MVP. Awards. Nate Silver wrote about it in the A.L. race between Miguel Cabrera and Mike Trout, as did Lynn Zinser for the National League. WAR […]
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Just received the galleys for my forthcoming book, 501 Books Baseball Fans Must Read before They Die. Very exciting. Seems like this is really going to happen (knock on wood).
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As this episode of ESPN’s Outside the Lines begins, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” This episode of the network’s sports documentary focuses on the most recent Marlin’s “fire sale,” with Jeffrey Loria the chief arsonist. The commentators note this is not the first time the art dealer/baseball owner […]
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We call them trucks; the British call them “lorries.” We call them garter belts; the British call them “suspenders.” We call them elevators; the British call them “lifts.” We call them baseball caps…
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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
Swung on and missed
January 15, 2013
As in I missed posting this earlier. So how’s Peter Rose looking now, given the latest Hall of Fame debacle? Perhaps in an attempt to bring him back into the spotlight, he and his family are the subject of a new reality TV series, Pete Rose, Hits & Mrs., which airs Sunday nights on The […]
Tagged as: Pete Rose, reality TV
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