Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message. So without further ado, here are the top ten baseball books as […]
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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 an indication of the time and effort the author/publisher puts into the project. Similarly, I’m basing my opinions strictly on […]
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There are a handful of publishing houses that are known for their baseball titles. A few that come to mind immediately are Triumph, University of Nebraska Press, and McFarland. But none of these are exclusively engaged in baseball. Summer Game Books, a New Jersey enterprise founded by Walter Friedman, is such an outfit. In addition […]
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Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message. So without further ado, here are the top ten baseball books as […]
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Were’ getting to the point where the new baseball titles — at least the ones not dedicated to the fantasy side — will be coming out hot and heavy. Given the state of print journalism, I wonder how much space will be devoted to individual reviews. I think we’ll see items like this from the […]
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Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message. So without further ado, here are the top ten baseball books as […]
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Really looking forward to this. I just hope Harvey doesn’t turn into one of those prospects who shows great promise, only to be done in by the fickle finger of fate.
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Mickey Mantle. Sandy Koufax. Two heroic symbols of the Boomer generation. Two flawed figures, one of his own accord, one of poor luck. Jane Leavy has turned both of their stories into best-selling biograophies. So what does she do for an encore? Why not another icon, who wrestled with his own demons, although it didn’t […]
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One of the first women reports to make it into a mens’ locker room, Alison Gordon passed away yesterday at the age of 72. Gordon, who covered the Blue Jays for the Toronto Star, wrote about her experiences in her 19085 memoir, Foul ball!: Five Years in the American League, which is include in 501 Baseball […]
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Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message. So without further ado, here are the top ten baseball books as […]
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Derek Jeter: Excellence and Elegance, compiled and edited by Tyler Kepner. Triumph, 2014. Jeter Unfiltered, by Derek Jeter with photographs by Christopher Anderson. Gallery Books, 2015. How do you tell the story of one of the most iconic players of his generation in a few hundred pages? As the Yankees’ future Hall of Fame shortstop […]
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by Martha Jo Black and Chuck Schoffner. Academy Chicago, 2015. Rather than the blustery “best” or “greatest” that book titles seem to relish, this new biography of what basically amounted to a one-year wonder, is most appropriate. Joe Black, who burst on the scene in 1952 by winning 15 games and saving 15 more to […]
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* Josh Wilker’s forthcoming book, Benchwarmer: An Anxious Dad’s Almanac of Fatherhood and Other Failures gets a thumbs up from Kirkus. Upshot: “This almanac of fatherhood (and other failures) is honest, relatable and humorous—an indispensable read for fathers (and sons) whose joy in life comes not from winning the big game but being alive to […]
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Over due. The baseball community lost one of its real gentlemen when Ernie Banks passed away over the weekend. Banks struck me like a Stan Musial type: a certified Hall of Famer who spent his entire career with one team that didn’t always play that well. He did well enough, though: two consecutive MVP awards […]
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Just like the movies, this is the baseball book awards season. On Monday, I wrote about Kostya Kennedy’s biography Pete Rose: An American Dilemma, winning Spitball Magazine’s Casey award. Now the other shoe has dropped. Mover and Shaker: Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers, & Baseball’s Westward Expansion, by past SABR President Andy McCue was selected as […]
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Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine announced the winner of the 2014 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year is Kostya Kennedy for Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. The showing turned in by Rose was especially impressive given the outstanding field of finalists, which was extended by two books over the normal total of […]
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Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message. So without further ado, here are the top ten baseball books […]
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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
