Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The Revolutionary Reign of Bud Selig, by Andrew Zimbalist (John Wiley and Sons, 2007) Allan H. “Bud” Selig has nominally been in charge of the national pastime longer than any commissioner since Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Needless to say, the game has expanded beyond what the sixteen original owners could ever have imagined. Such success […]
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This week in baseball books, featuring the best-sellers according to Amazon.com on Friday, July 17. Title Rank General Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend, Tye 1 Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain, Appel 2 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Lewis 3 Bert Sugar’s Baseball Hall of […]
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Given the draft of the script. I’ll watch anything about baseball. Cartoons, documentaries, lousy films (Jackie Robinson was a great ballplayer, but a poor actor). But this draft of the aborted Brad Pitt vehicle would sorely try my patience (Groucho Marx: “Don’t mind if I do. You must try mine sometime.”). Moneyball, the non-fiction neo-classic […]
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I must admit, I agree with the SF Chronicle’s Gwen Knapp in her column where she avers that the book was not meant to be a feature film. In fact, the fate of the movie might have been more dramatic than any material “Moneyball” could have provided. What would have constituted the big moments in […]
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This week in baseball books, featuring the best-sellers according to Amazon.com on Friday, June 19. Title Rank General Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend, Tye 1 The Yankee Years, Torre and Verducci 2 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Lewis 3 The Science of Hitting, Williams 4 As They See […]
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For those of you who don’t know who he is (and I must admit I didn’t either), the late Dr. Scully was the first to apply labor economics to sports, said former colleague Philip K. Porter, now professor of economics at the University of South Florida. Sports economists refer to his groundbreaking work as “the […]
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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 […]
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It’s no secret that newspapers are in a bad way. That includes the sports department, and by extension, baseball writers. Some publications have cut staff, others cutting back by sending writers on fewer road trips, opting to take stories from other sources. Techdirt ran this piece on the situation, referring to this article from The […]
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And when it comes to sportswriting, the forecast doesn’t appear too rosy, at least according to this well-done essay from the Pitchers and Poets (motto: “Both have their moments”) blog. Eric, the author of the entry titled “On Writing, Baseball Writing, and the 21st Century,” concludes the thought-provoker, If Jim Bouton was on today’s version […]
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More on the decision by MLB to cease the printed publication of the Red and Green Books. Murray Chass wrote about this awhile ago, and sure enough, it’s become a generational thing. David Appelman of FanGraphs.com: … as a younger person who uses the Internet (and sometimes even writes about baseball), I actually do have […]
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Or Green. As in the American and National Leagues’ ‘s Red and Green Book, respectively. The annual publications were conceived as tools for executives and the media, full of all kinds of unusual information, such as the origin of team logos and color schemes, name pronunciations, and of course, all manner of stats. They supplemented […]
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From our friend Greg Spira comes this link to LibraryJournal.com’s annual baseball feature. Among the usual share of biographies and memoirs, histories, and social commentaries are such themes as: Yet another biography about Yogi Berra, this one by homonymic author Allen Barra, and one on Walter O’Malley by Michael D’Antonio Ira Berkow’s bio of Lou […]
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Stealing an idea from ESPN the Magazine (and others, no doubt). Took my math-challenged mind awhile to figure out that W2W4 means “what to watch for.” Duh. Anyway, the always-informative BizofBaseball.com offers this list of ten stories to watch for in 2009, including: The economy Credit Digital media rights Cubs sale New stadia Ticket discounting/price […]
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Lou Limmer was a power-hitting first baseman for the Philadelphia As in the early 1950s. In 1954 — his only full season, he hit 14 home runs. That may not sound like much, but it was good enough for a second-place tie on a stinko team that finished in the basement, 60 games behind the […]
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You have to either be a small child or living with your head in the sand not to know what’s going on in the economy these days. Jobs lost, stocks plunging, parents wondering how they’ll send their kids to college or pay the mortgage. Those who think sports will provide a diversion might be in […]
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It’s quite appropriate that baseball’s winter meetings are held around the holidays. If your team’s front office guys are good, you can get a swell present of a 40-home run slugger or Cy Young-caliber pitcher. Or you can get a lump of coal. It’s way too early to report on anything major, so in the […]
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BaseballReflections.com posted this review of J.C. Bradbury’s book. Upshot: While the writing is not inherently strong, Bradbury does a good job of simplifying complicated economics issues for those of us who don’t spend our lives studying these things. Overall it is a very interesting read for those who are interested in outside the box issues […]
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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
* But seriously, folks…
August 4, 2009 · 4 comments
Had a good time at the SABR convention in DC. It was nice too meet so many folks who are just as nuts (if not more so) than me. Being the bookworm that I am, it was especially nice hanging out with the writers, many of whom were peddling their products in the vendors’ room. […]
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