Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Baseball America ran this interview with Dirk Hayhurst, author of The Baseball Gospels. Hayhurst is currently on the Blue Jays’ 60-day disabled list, which gives him lots of time to hump his boo, which reportedly will be on the NY Times‘ next best-seller list. * * * Slate published this entertaining (and too-brief) comparison of […]
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Since you can keep a newspaper on your bookshelf, I suppose I could do this on a daily basis. Hmm. April Fool. There are plenty of other blogs that can take care of that. What? Man, I gotta get rid of these Page-a-Day calendars. I’m just too disorganized. First of all, just wanted to let […]
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but probably shouldn’t. From the Boston Herald.
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Or Johan, or David, or Gary? I don’t get it: when the Yankees lose their season opener — a night game that ends late; nice big picture of Granderson after his first home run in the pinstripes — they make the front page. When the Mets win — an impressive afternoon affair — they don’t […]
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Congratulations to Mike Lynch at Seamheads.com, winner of this month’s Bookshelf Facebook Fan drawing for a copy of Jason Turbow and Michael Duca’s The Baseball Codes. This month the Bookshelf will give away a copy of Dan Fost’s new book, Giants Past & Present. Fost will be appearing at the Yogi Berra Museum in Little […]
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The MLB Network isn’t the only entity examining “30 teams in 30 days.” I participated in a couple of “round table” discussions with the good folks at Inside Pulse Sports recently about what the 2010 season might hold for the Mets and Nationals, my two favorite teams. You can read the Mets piece here and […]
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Books about pitchers, and books about batters. Titles on deep and historical matters. Trips to Fall Classics that started in spring, These are a few of my favorite things. Bios on Aaron and Mantle and Maris (The new one on Willie will soon be a classic). A new one on Reggie and all of his […]
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Interesting piece by Les Leopold on BigJournalism.com Let me put this in stark terms than even the most financially challenged fantasy baseball owner can understand: What happens when there’s a strike or lockout? Yep, it’s good by fantasy baseball. All of our wonderful fantasy teams turn into……toxic assets with no value! And the entire fantasy […]
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Welcome to Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf, 2.0. With this self-hosted version, I hope to be able to bring new features, interviews, etc. in the days and weeks (and months and years) ahead. In the near future, we’ll have original audio interviews with such author as as Danny Peary (Roger Maris: Baseball’s Reluctant Hero), Josh Wilker […]
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After all, he can’t play forever.
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Jay Leno returns to The Tonight Show this evening. Herewith a gallery of some of the baseball big shots he’s had on…
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We’ve been hearing about Jay McGwire’s book about his brother, Mark, for the past several months. And I’m sure it will get plenty of press. Only not here. I’m a bit tired of all these secondary personages trying to make a buck off their parents, husband, wife, partner, or sibling by publishing a book. Some […]
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Come on, you know you do it. Everybody does it… The first time I “discovered” myself was in an airport in Milwaukee, coming back, appropriately enough, from a SABR convention. In the time since, when I’ve Googled myself to see where mention of The Bookshelf might have appeared. I’ve discovered I share the name with […]
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Come on, you know you do it. Everybody does it… The first time I “discovered” myself was in an airport in Milwaukee, coming back, appropriately enough, from a SABR convention. In the time since, when I’ve Googled myself to see where mention of The Bookshelf might have appeared. I’ve discovered I share the name with […]
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I say “semi” because I’m promoting the work of others as well. Just received a copy of the Yankees 2010 Annual from Maple Street Press. Part yearbook, part magazine, it features the usual player profiles, as well as some minor league and historical background stuff. My articlem, “Koshering the Yankees,” about Yankees Fantasy Camp, an […]
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How often was his seminal novel of youth struggling for identity and acceptance mistaken for a baseball story? Maybe that’s because of former major league catcher — and later TV personality and broadcaster — Bob Uecker’s homonymic book. (Quick aside: In the mid-90s, I worked part time for one of those statistical companies that track […]
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I was honored by the request to pen the foreword for Jews and Baseball, Vol. 2: The Post-Greenberg Years, 1949-2008, by Burton and Benita Boxerman and published by McFarland. The first volume, subtitled Entering the American Mainstream, 1871-1948, was published by McFarland in 2007. Like its predecessor, this new “must-have” serves as a thorough resource […]
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There’s been a lot of talk about what to do with the statistics from the Steroids Era. Some want them expunged from the record books. Others, like Tony Kornheiser, want a special note on any Hall of Fame plaque, bringing into account the possibility (probability?) that said honored player partook of PED. My take is: […]
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My stats-keepers indicates The Bookshelf has received more than a quarter million hits. My thanks to all you readers out there. I know there are thousands of baseball blogs and believe The Bookshelf is one of the few devoted to this particular niche. But I’m just curious as to your take on the best of […]
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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
Fill in the blank
March 18, 2010
Had to get a tire replaced this morning. While sitting in the waiting room, I picked up a recent copy of The Sporting News which carried feature about the questionnaires the publication would hand out to players each year in preparation for the defunct Baseball Register. This article included reproductions of the forms from Willie […]
Tagged as: baseball and ethnicity, The Sporting News
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