Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Editor’s Note: Brought to you as another PSA, via the Baseball Hall of Fame. For further reading on the topic, scroll down to the bottom of the announcement. ——- In the earliest years of wireless radio, the pioneers of the industry created a new genre: Baseball broadcaster. This fall, one of those pioneers will win […]
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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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It’s still Thursday somewhere, right? Got sidetracked yesterday and this slipped my mind. 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 […]
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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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And the wrap-up… * denotes items of particular interest (to me, at any rate). Odds and Ends ** It will be interesting to see how The Hidden Game of Baseball: A Revolutionary Approach to Baseball and Its Statistics has held up since it was first published 30 years ago. Authors John Thorn and Pete Palmer […]
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Because you can put a stopwatch on your bookshelf. The regular season was over but the post-season hadn’t started yet. What to do? I know! Let’s talk about how to speed up the games. That’s appropriate right before you air even longer games, thanks to team introductions (including the trainers) and more elaborate “honoring America” […]
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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. On with the show… Here are the top ten baseball books as […]
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Or, in the case, the podcast did. Both of these items relate to the recent World Series. An offshoot of the “National Pastime Radio” tag, this was heard in the “Who’s Carl This Time” segment of on the Nov. 2 episode of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me: PETER SAGAL: All right, Gary, here is your […]
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This piece by Rob Neyer on Baseball Nation relates to two recent entries on the Bookshelf, one about Tim McCarver calling it a broadcast career, the other about the poor job FOX does producing the World Series. Among my favorite passages from Neyer: About Tim McCarver’s Baseball for Brain Surgeons and Other Fans: “There are […]
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I’m grateful for this piece in today’s New York Times by Richard Sandomir critiquing the network’s handling of the last game of the World Series. A main point is the use made popular in the last few years of the baseball version of the “sideline reporter,” only much less serious. In football, a SR will […]
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Regardless of your opinion of Tim McCarver, endings are almost always sad. Last night’s World Series finale was the swan song of his broadcasting career. I especially appreciate McCarver’s comment that his goals as a broadcaster included “teaching you something you may not have known about this great game.” He’s done that on the air […]
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XX Because this is an ongoing concern and I can’t be bothered to remember how many of these I’ve done before. You know how many baseball “experts” picked a World Series in which the Boston Red Sox faced the St. Louis Cardinals? According to PunditTracker, zero. Where do I apply for a job in the […]
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One of the grand old men of broadcast sports passed away yesterday at the age of 92. I remember Mazer from WNEW-TV (Channel Five) in New York. He was one of — if not the –first to host a half-hour Sunday night sports show, following the evening’s newscast. I always thought it was a “dead”space. […]
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Speaking of the Dodgers, the legend (wait for it) ary broadcaster was himself the subject of this interview on All Things Considered. Scully began working for the Dodgers in 1950, but he wasn’t calling that historic 1951 playoff game with the NY Giants where Pafko was left hanging. From “Vin Scully Remembers His Greatest Calls,” […]
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Long-time Mets broadcaster Howie Rose put in appearance on The Brian Lehrer Show earlier this month to discuss (ostensibly) his memoir, Put It In the Book!: A Half-Century of Mets Mania. You can listen to it here. * * * Baseball once again was a topic, albeit a brief one, on my favorite NPR show, […]
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Note: This entry is a combination of the official press release sent by the Hall of Fame and my comments/edits. With the release of Legendary Entertainment’s landmark film 42 this spring, the worlds of movies and baseball came together for fans across the globe. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum will recognize the […]
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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
Throwback Thursday (aka, links dump)
September 10, 2015 · 1 comment
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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