Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
NOTE: I have been posting these things long enough now that a few have commented that the introductory section isn’t necessary anymore. But I’m leaving it in because, to paraphrase Joe DiMaggio when asked why he played so hard all the time, there may be people who’ve never read the best-seller entries before. So on […]
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Ken Burns was on the show yesterday to discuss his upcoming documentary on Jackie Robinson, to be aired next month on PBS. If they’d just done this a few days earlier, it would have been a perfect feature for Black History Month. But I can also understand that you don’t want to publicize something […]
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Graham Womack published this ranked list of the 25 greatest baseball books on The Sporting News site. When I wrote 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die, I made a decision not to put them in an order other than alphabetical to avoid having to defend my choices. Such a method invites arguments […]
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Or is it “coming down the pipe?” That would make sense, too. Of course, it would have to be a wide pipe… Been in conversation with Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News who does a marvelous job every year with his 30 baseball books in 30 days feature on his “Farther off the […]
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Funny how discoveries are made. My wife and I were having lunch at the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, last fall and dropped by the gift shop on the way out. Now usually, I hover around the door, tapping my foot impatiently and watching my watch. But right at the front of the shop […]
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NOTE: I have been posting these things long enough now that a few have commented that the introductory section isn’t necessary anymore. But I’m leaving it in because, to paraphrase Joe DiMaggio when asked why he played so hard all the time, there may be people who’ve never read the best-seller entries before. So on […]
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One of the great ambassadors of the game, Monte Irvin passed away last night at the age of 96. Irvin was member of that generation of African-American ballplayers who suffered greatly as they integrated the game. Jackie Robinson was the first and most famous, and sometimes men like Irvin and Larry Doby don’t get the […]
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I don’t know who Matthew Price is, but he recently contributed this piece which appeared on the Newsday website on “11 books every New York Mets fan should read.” As a fan of the team myself, I believe every Mets devotee should read just about every book they can on the ball club, so I […]
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Dandy Sandy turns 80 today, if you can believe it. Back at the All-Star Game in July, Koufax was anointed — along with Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Johnny Bench — as one of baseball’s greatest living legends. The MLB Network aired a special moderated by Bob Costas featuring the quarter reminiscing and sharing anecdotes. […]
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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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NOTE: I have been posting these things long enough now that a few have commented that the introductory section isn’t necessary anymore. But I’m leaving it in because, to paraphrase Joe DiMaggio when asked why he played so hard all the time, there may be people who’ve never read the best-seller entries before. So on […]
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The longlist for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing To honor a nonfiction book on the subject of sports published in 2015 was announced today. Winner gets $5,000. Of the ten books on the list, four are baseball titles including: The Best Team Money Can Buy: The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Wild Struggle to Build […]
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My kindle is telling me I’m running out of storage so submitted for your interest from another semi-regular scan of new titles. It may seem unfair, but I do tend to judge e-books by their cover, especially when they are offered only in that format. It’s often an indication of the time and effort the […]
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NOTE: I have been posting these things long enough now that a few have commented that the introductory section isn’t necessary anymore. But I’m leaving it in because, to paraphrase Joe DiMaggio when asked why he played so hard all the time, there may be people who’ve never read the best-seller entries before. So on […]
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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
Bits and pieces, March 3, 2016
March 3, 2016
♦ As you know, I normally do not include books written for kids on this blog, but in this case — The William Hoy Story: How a Deaf Baseball Player Changed the Game — I’ve made an exception because of the special “teaching moment” involved and the fact that, unlike a lot of other titles […]
Tagged as: Buck O'Neil, Fans, Howard Megdal, Joe Posnanski, St. Louis Cardinals, William "Dummy": Hoy
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