From the category archives:

Business of baseball

Received the latest (Summer 2010) issue of the BSJ. To be honest, a lot of the statistical stuff therein is a bit over my head/interest level, but there are several book reviews, so it balances out. Among them: Phil Birnbaum on The Bill James Gold Mine 2010 Lee Lowenfish on Satchel: The Life and Times […]

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TWIBB: Aug. 6, 2010

August 6, 2010

The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Aug. 6. Title Rank General Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 1 Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball, by Bill Madden 2 Chicago Cubs Cookbook: All-star Recipes from Your Favorite Players 3 The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing […]

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Bits and pieces

July 31, 2010

Haven’t done one of these in a long time, but a glance at my Google alerts shows more than 500 notices, so here goes. Bruce Markusen at Hardball Times, conducted this interview with Dan Epstein, author of Big Hair and Plastic Grass. HT also ran this review of The Eastern Stars (upshot: “The Eastern Stars […]

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TWIBB: July 16, 2010

July 16, 2010 · 3 comments

The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, July 16. Title Rank General Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball, by Bill Madden 1 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 2 The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime, by Scott Turbow […]

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Ran this on my other blog on Jews and Sports: Bob Sheppard, the voice of the New York Yankees for some 60 years, passed away yesterday at the age of 99. Sheppard, who was known in certain circles as “the voice of God” for his diction, timber, and dulcet tone was not Jewish, but thanks […]

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(Got it in under the wire) Born on the Fourth of July 80 years ago. Here’s a review of Bill Madden’s new bio from WasWatching.com. Other titles featuring Steinbrenner include: George: The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built the Yankee Empire, by Peter Golenbock The Ballad of Billy and George: The Tempestuous Baseball Marriage of […]

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Not really, but I thought it was a cute way to introduce this Atlantic article on “How Justice Stevens Changed Baseball,” by Henry D. Fetter,  author of Taking on the Yankees: Winning and Losing in the Business of Baseball. In 1951, the future Justice Stevens was a young antitrust lawyer in Chicago when he was […]

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TWIBB: July 2, 2010

July 2, 2010

The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, July 2. Title Rank General Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 1 Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball, by Bill Madden 2 The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime, by Scott Turbow […]

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Bits and pieces

June 27, 2010

* The Book Corner posted this review of Stephen King’s Blockade Billy. Upshot: The book “will definitely satisfy Stephen King readers as well as those who don’t normally go for the sort of stories on which he made his reputation. And it’s closer to those kinds of stories than the story that fills out the […]

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TWIBB: June 25, 2010

June 25, 2010

The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, June 25. Title Rank General Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 1 Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball, by Bill Madden 2 The Game from Where I Stand: A Ballplayer’s Inside View, by Doug Glanville 3 The Bullpen Gospels: Major […]

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More on Madden

June 24, 2010

The Dorchester Reporter posted this Clark Booth review of Bill Madden’s latest title, Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball. Upshot: “It is, I believe, a decidedly important baseball book. Bill Madden is the man to tell it.”

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The Hall of Fame speedster turns 71 today. Although there are no books about Brock, per se, you can’t pick up any volume that analyzes baseball wheeling and dealing without a major mention of the 1965 transaction that switched Brock for St. Louis pitcher Ernie Broglio. Such titles include Trade Him!: 100 Years of Baseball’s […]

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The Sultan of Stats

June 17, 2010

Allan Roth did not invent baseball statistics. Henry Chadwick introduced those in the late 1800s, mostly for the benefit of the fans. What Roth did — first for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers and later for network television broadcasts — was show how they could be used proactively, rather than as an afterthought published by newspapers […]

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Welcome to Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf, the podcast! Bear with us; this is a work in progress. We’ll get it right as time goes by. In the first installment, we chat with Bill Madden, veteran NY Daily News sportswriter and columnist, about his NY Times‘ bestseller, Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball. You can read […]

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by Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic, with Andrew Chaikivsky. ESPN Books, 2010 A caveat and a confession: While “hate” may be too strong a word, I “intensely dislike” sports-talk radio. The idea of (supposedly) grown men and women getting apoplectic on the air over Oliver Perez or Ron Artest or Bill Belichick, et al…not my […]

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My review of Bill Madden’s riveting profile of the Yankees owner was published on Bookreporter.com. You can read it here.

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TWIBB: June 4, 2010

June 4, 2010

This top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, June 4. Title Rank General Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of  Baseball, by Bill Madden 1 The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime, by Jason Turbow with Michael Duca 2 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, […]

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National Pastime Radio

May 31, 2010

George Will put in an appearance on The Brian Lehrer Show in April (how did I miss that), to discuss the re-release of Men at Work, first published 20 years ago. Say what you will about Will’s politics, he loves his baseball and can discuss it without engaging in overly vainglorious verbosity. You can hear […]

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Bits and pieces

May 22, 2010

SFReeper critiques Emma Span’s look at the game from the distaff side and Jason Turbow’s do’s and dont’s. If the British read Moneyball, do they have to convert it into pounds or euros? The AV Club conducted this Q&A with Dan Epstein, author of Big Hair & Plastic Grass. You gotta wonder if he grew […]

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TWIBB: May 21, 2010

May 21, 2010

This top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, May 21. Title Rank General Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball, by Bill Madden 1 The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime, by Jason Turbow with Michael Duca 2 The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron, […]

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