Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
After they spill out of the player’s head when he’s hit by a pitch… Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner waxes nostalgic about the more macho players of his generation and their disdain for batting helmets. Back in the day, Major Leaguers had to walk 15 miles to the ballpark and back, up hill each way. […]
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One of the annoying parts about watching post-season baseball is the need the carrying networks have to hump their programs. All of the sudden Star X is a huge baseball fan or Star Y is throwing out the first pitch. That’s bad enough, but this is even worse. For shame, you shills, for shame.
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Here’s something you don’t see every day: a 3-2-6-1-5-3-4-6-8 double play pulled off by the Double-A New Britain Rock Cats against the Binghamton Mets. You need a scorecard with extra large boxes for that one.
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As long as it’s just one or the other, that’s not too bad… This comes from Great Scot!, a blog from Scot Drucker, a minor league pitcher in the Tigers’ system: “Someone is going to get seriously hurt or injured“
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“MLB probes Dodgers’ Ethier for obscene gesture” Two thoughts: A) What are they hoping to find and where, exactly? B) Isn’t that a bit harsh punishment for flipping the bird to someone?
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“You got to have a lot of little boy in you to play this game.” Even if the game is “just” softball. Thanks to my own senior softball team manager, Sam, for passing this along.
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Because you can put brains on a bookshelf, which is where this guy obviously left his. (Courtesy demotivationals4U.com)
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(but not for too long, especially if it’s iced).
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But I feel it’s important enough to include my Huffington Post piece on Kobe Bryant and his anti-gay slur.
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So I was tooling around seeing what’s going on around the diamond today and came across an ESPN list of how this year’s rookies are doing. Just looking at the batters, there are three ways of judging their accomplishments: regular statistics, pretty much the kind of info you used to be able to find on […]
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Baseball and The Simpsons. In the latest episode, Grandpa Abe serves as a guinea pig for a drug that will turn him from grumpy to glad. In order to test the product’s viability, the phrama testers experiment with several variations until the seemingly find the right one. The head of the company wants to make […]
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Want to help out a good cause with the potential to score some baseball book swag? Writers for the Red Cross holds a weekly on-line auction. This week the prize is provided by Joseph Wallace, author of Diamond Ruby: A Novel and several other non-fiction coffee table titles about the national pastime. According to Wallace, […]
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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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Join me tonight at 9 p.m. EST when I make my weekly appearance on the What’s On Second Internet radio program. (Actually, I’ll be on closer to 9:40.) This week we’ll be discussing annual baseball magazines and whether they’ve gone the way of the dodo.
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First that, now this? (You have to look at the ad closely.) Good to see the person who sewed the letters on the uniform was able to find employment again.
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What are the three little words most appropriate for this particular occasion? Pitchers and catchers. ‘Nuf said. Books about spring training include: Under the March Sun: The Story of Spring Training Spring Training Spring Training Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide To The Ballparks Of The Grapefruit And Cactus Leagues Arizona Spring Training Ballpark Guide: A Fan’s […]
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Bobby Valentine — How has this guy not written a book yet? Between his time as manager for the Texas Rangers and New York Mets after a promising but ultimately injury-aborted playing career, plus his time in Japan, you’d think someone would have published one. There was a cool documentary — The Zen of Bobby […]
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The Definitive List
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The poster boy for the unathletic-looking male, the one who gave millions hope that they, too, could fit in with the slim/muscular types, turns 50 today. Kruk was one of those players who was pretty good, but… He finished his 10-year career with an even .300 batting average and hit .348 in the 1993 World […]
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This is a response that any interviewer loves to hear. It indicates the interviewee finds the query interesting and/or hasn’t heard it before (or is just buttering up the interviewer). So here’s a good one posed by TB Sports blog: “How many baseball books do you read each year?“
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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
