Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The author of one of the most controversial baseball biographies died yesterday at the age of 62. Cramer published Joe DiMaggio : The Hero’s Life in 2000. Many fans of the Yankee Clipper were outraged as the author painted the legend in an unusually unflattering light. DiMaggio was cheap, ungracious, a womanizer (sometimes bordering on […]
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The Japanese import known — perhaps politically incorrectly — as “Godzilla,” announced his retirement at the age 38. Matsui spent most of his career with the New York Yankees. I’m guessing he’s had at least one book written about him based on his career in Japan. At least two titles were released in the U.S., […]
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Spitball Magazine announced the finalists for the publications annual CASEY award for best baseball book of the year. The titles include: Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan, by Robert K. Fitts Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick, by Paul Dickson Connie Mack: The Turbulent and Triumphant Years, 1915-1931, by […]
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Tonight’s World Series game will honor America’s veterans. The New York Times ran this piece about Lou Brissie, who managed to have a brief Major League career despite being grievously injured in world war II. He was the subject of the 2009 biography The Corporal Was a Pitcher: The Courage of Lou Brissie, by former […]
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A semi-occasional attempt to catch up on various items of literary (and other) interest. ♦ Keith Eggener published this nicely-illustrated piece on “The Demolition and Afterlife of Baltimore Memorial Stadium” on designobserver.com. I love finding baseball items from sources that are about as far away from baseball as you can get. ♦ As mentioned in […]
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♦ The Washington Post published this piece on Tony La Russa’s memoir, One Last Strike: Fifty Years in Baseball, Ten and a Half Games Back, and One Final Championship Season. ♦ Better late than never: It seems the Seattle Post-Intelligencer finally got around to posting a review of Zack Hample’s 2007 publication, Watching Baseball Smarter: […]
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Enjoyed reading a few … well, what to call them? They’re not exactly graphic novels since they deal with real-life figures.. Anyway… The first was 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente, which is described as a graphic novel on the dust cover. Written/drawn by Wilfred Santiago and published by Fantographic Books last year, this is […]
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Conducted my semi-regular scan of new titles. Submitted for your interest. 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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♦ From the Tulsa World, this on on Robert Fitts’ Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan. Upshot: “It is very well-researched and a balanced account, but it occasionally threatens to sag under the weight of such details. Readers need not be fans of baseball to appreciate the sport […]
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♦ The Summer 2012 issue of Jewish Currents features a review by Cynthia Werthamer of Pitching in the Promised Land: A Story of the First and Only Season in the Israel Baseball League, by former IBL hurler Aaron Pribble. Upshot: “While Pribble’s book could do with less foreshadowing…, his retelling of the ups and downs […]
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♦ Bleacher Report posted this one about Golden Boys: Baseball Portraits, 1946-1960 by the late Andy Jurinko. Upshot: “Seldom does a book come around that can boast about being magnificently illustrated as well as historically captivating, let alone a book based on the Golden Age of baseball.” ♦ SouthBendTribune.com posted this review of Andre Dawson’s […]
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by Arnold Hano. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1964. After reading his classic A Day In The Bleachers and interviewing him for a Bookshelf podcast, I was thrilled to find this little gem available through my local library coop. What makes Sandy Koufax: Strikeout King interesting is the fact that it was published before his famous decision […]
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John Klima discusses his latest book, Bushville Wins!: The Wild Saga of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves and the Screwballs, Sluggers, and Beer Swiggers Who Canned the New York Yankees and Changed Baseball, on WUWM, Milwaukee’s NPR presence. In the “here’s something you don’t see everyday” department, author Don Spivey wants his biography on Satchel Paige […]
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The author of the classic Babe: The Legend Comes to Life, as well as other highly praised baseball titles (Baseball in ’41: A Celebration of the “Best Baseball Season Ever” and Stengel: His Life and Times) turned 90 on Saturday. Baseball: Past and Present posted this interview with Creamer earlier this year.
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Maybe it’s just the sports new cycles, but it seems there was a lot of emphasis on how young many of this year’s All-Stars were, juxtaposed with Chipper Jones, who is probably making his last appearance in the summer classic. (Did anyone else think his locker room “pep talk” was uncomfortable and stagey?) It occurred […]
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* A couple of reviews on John Grisham’s Calico Joe, one yea (“Calico Joe is his first baseball themed book and it didn’t disappoint.”), one nay (“Grisham’s work lacks the meat and potatoes to satisfy this reader’s appetite for page-turning substance. It’s a slim book that perhaps would have made a much better short story […]
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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
August 30, 2012
Time for the occasional declutter of the accumulated links and stories, so here goes. “Dan Barry’s Bottom of the 33rd has won the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing, which honors a nonfiction book on the subject of sports.” More here. From the Yogi Berra Museum: Former Yankee star second baseman Bobby Richardson, a cornerstone […]
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