Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
As reviewed in The Los Angeles Times. Upshot: …[T]hose seeking deeper insights into the redheaded announcer will be disappointed. Scully, now 81, is a humble man and has long said he does not want a biography written about him. He did not cooperate with Smith, and the result is an engaging yet uneven book. The […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
He becomes the 24th pitcher, and sixth left-hander, to notch 300 wins.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The most recent episode of Only a Game includes an interview with Peter Golenbock, author of George: The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built the Yankee Empire. You can hear the segment here.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Curt Smith, who has a professed fondness for the boys in the baseball booth, has published another in-depth biography about an broadcasting icon. In Pull Up A Chair: The Vin Scully Story (Potomac), Smith — who has covered other industry stars as Mel Allen and Dizzy Dean— combines his admiration for the man was had […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The May/June issue of ForeWord Magazine, a publication that specializes in small and university presses, carries my feature on nine 2009 baseball titles, including: Under the March Sun: The Story of Spring Training High-Flying Birds: The 1942 St. Louis Cardinal Babe Ruth: Remembering the Bambino in Stories, Photos & Memorabilia Yankee Colors: The Glory Years […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend by Larry Tye, due June 9. For more information, visit LarryTye.com.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez, by Selena Roberts (Harper Collins) There’s a telling reference in Selena Robert’s new expose on Alex Rodriguez: [Rodriguez] pursued his investments with the same conflicted soul. He projected a Mister Rogers benevolence, but he was more like Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life. Reading A-Rod, I got the […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Don’t you just feel so sorry for authors who works so hard to put out a book, then, as soon as it hits the stores, something happens to rendered it outdated? Such is the case for Becoming Manny:Inside the Life of Baseball’s Most Enigmatic Slugger, by Jean Rhodes and Shawn Boburg. News that Ramirez was […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From the Detroit Free Press. Upshot: The result is a tragic, all-encompassing look at the life of a man who captured the hearts of baseball fans with his 98-m.p.h. heater and renowned work ethic, only to lose it through deep-seeded character flaws and bad decisions. You want to root for Clemens in this book, but […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The line comes from an old Bugs Bunny cartoon. Go look it up. But I’ll tell you it refers to ganging up on someone unmercifully. Not that I have any sympathy for Roger Clemens, but jeez, guys, enough already. How many ways can you say “ham and eggs?” (Sorry, Rabbi.) Jeff Perlman’s book on Clemens […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Brought to you by the LA Times. The Providence Journal posted this book review, as well: “How did Manny become Manny?”
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Seems Yonamine was sort of the Jackie Robinson of Japanese baseball. This review comes from The Hardball Times.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The Chicago Blog posted this brief piece considering a couple of off-the-beaten-path baseball titles, including Professor Baseball and Veeck as in Wreck, both of which present the game as belonging to the common man, rather than elite athletes and multi-millionaires.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
That’s the date the Selena Roberts book on Alex Rodriguez is due out. Judging by the AP item, it’s like a run-down play: …Roberts’ unauthorized A-Rod was originally planned for May, then was moved up to mid-April after Roberts, a Sports Illustrated reporter, broke the news that the Yankees slugger had tested positive for steroids […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
SABR’s Deadball Era Committee gives the Larry Ritter Award to the best new book related to the Deadball Era. Ritter was the author/editor of The Glory of Their Times, a seminal book of baseball oral history. The 2009 winner is Ron Selter for Ballparks of the Deadball Era (McFarland). The three other Finalists for the […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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
* Speaking of heroes…
May 31, 2009
Owen Canfield, a former full-time columnist and sports editor of The Hartford Courant, focuses his now-monthly columnon books about ballplayers whose accomplishments go beyond the ball park. The first is Ira Berkow’s The Corporal Was a Pitcher, the Courage of Lou Brissie. The second is a book on five CDs, Clemente, the Passion and Grace […]
Tagged as: Lou Brissie, Roberto Clemente
{ Comments on this entry are closed }