Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
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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Me neither. (Because you can put classic comics on your bookshelf.)
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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. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get. (Actually, I never understood […]
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Allow me to wax nostalgic for a moment. This entry represents post number Looking back, I’m amazed and grateful for a number of things the Bookshelf has brought over the years: the chance to read a lot, of course; recognition (exaggerated) as an expert on the topic; access to the numerous creative folks who have […]
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Not to be maudlin or anything, but I’ve decided to get rid of the vast majority of my baseball library now, rather than leave it for my family when the time comes. It will be refreshing to have all that additional space and maybe free up the attic to me more of a man cave […]
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It goes without saying that baseball is one of the more literate and literary sports. But to gauge the “education” of teams’ fans by the comments they leave on websites or via social media is a bit silly. I don’t mean to indict an entire generation, but texting, IMs, and emails have reached a point […]
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In the words of that immortal philosopher, Regis Philbin. I have no illusions about the worth of this blog, although it has afforded me perhaps an unmerited reputation as an expert on baseball books. While this is obviously something I enjoy doing — especially the Bookshelf Conversations — as well as getting to meet a […]
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WTF is up with that new and very creepy KFC commercial starring the resurrected Col. Sanders? “…Because if there’s two things I’m certain of, it’s that baseball will always be America’s number one sport, free from corruption, scandal, and cheating of any kind. And two, the summer meal featuring my Kentucky Fried Chicken tastes better […]
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Haven’t been keeping up lately because I had to read a non-baseball sports book for review. That’ll teach me. Out of respect for the book, which was assigned to me by a publication I will similarly not name, let’s just say it falls into this category. To make matters worse, I did not do due […]
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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, […]
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Came across this from The Wall Street Journal via a Facebook post: Here’s a Perplexing Question to Bat Around What does it mean to “bat around” in baseball? Is it the situation when nine batters come to the plate in one inning? Or is it 10? At first I thought it was so simple. Has […]
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Pursuant to the previous piece re: Paul Auster’s suggestions on how to shorten the games, I offer this reboot of the seventh-inning stretch “anthem”: Take me out Buy me some peanuts. I don’t care. Let us root root for the laundry; If they don’t win, meh. For it’s two strikes, you’re out. The end. (Time […]
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When the baseball purists start calling for the heads of those who would buck tradition in finding ways to speed up the game, they might start with author Paul Auster. Auster came up with brilliant idea of two strikes and you’re out and three balls, take your base. The former is strictly two strikes, by […]
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A few weeks ago, I published a Q&A with Matt Nadel, the 16-year-old blogger and author of Amazing Aaron to Zero Zippers. So I got this brilliant of idea of killing two birds with one stone: cleaning up and “investing” in the future of baseball scholarship. I’ve been trying to cull the herd of my […]
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Okay, it’s not actually advertising, but The Player’s Tribune, an on-line “magazine’ founded by the recently-retired Derek Jeter, has come under some scrutiny lately. TPT purports to “publish first-person stories directly from the athletes” (emphasis added). Maybe there’s a difference of opinion on the definition of “directly.” Richard Sandomir, the New York Times’ sports media […]
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Skip to 2:20…
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This is the time of year when preseason predictions are all the rage. You can pretty much find them anywhere — ESPN, CBS Sports, Yahoo sports, etc., not to mention the gazillions of fantasy sites. I’ve maintained the problem with such prognostications is they are prepared in/for a vacuum, a situation where everything goes according […]
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Bob, a distant relative of my wife, passed away recently. He lived in Hoboken with his wife, who died several years ago. I didn’t know him well. He was a very quiet fellow who kept to himself during the biennial family reunions. I can’t even recall his last name on my own. It turns out […]
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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
I don’t mean to be critical…
May 19, 2015
But I’ve often felt that a fair number of these “literary” book reviews were semi-incestuous. That is, the authors travel in a lot of the same circles, went to the same schools, know the same people. It frequently struck me as a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” quid pro quo kind of thing. […]
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