Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
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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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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Interesting mini-doc with a couple of gentlemen opining about the use of sabrmetrics in constructing and strategizing (sp?) professional baseball.
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When the Commissioner tells owners not to pay too much in these tough economic times. The GM meetings are a preamble to the Winter Meetings, always fun for rumor-mongering, a time when fans of perennial losers or teams that are just laacking one piece of the puzzle hold out hope. There are several fascinating books […]
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A lot of fans proably forget that the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown is also a library. I spent a great week up there several years ago, doing research for a book about baseball during the Korean War years. the staff couldn’t have been nicer, and the access of walking around like I belonged was […]
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Posted the second list before the first, so here it is: Ball Four (Jim Bouton, 1970) | This book changed everything about how we cover and view sports and the people who play them. It also almost got me and my friend Prisby thrown out of sophomore English because we kept reading passages out loud […]
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Economics is one of those topics that is so important but that seemingly few people really understand. Box Score, a new blog, sounds interesting in that its purpose is to break the components down into understandble concepts using baseball. So what could be bad? In this entry, the bloggers refer to Moneyball and Strat-o-matic, two […]
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The Wall Street Journal published this item about the long-in-the-tooth pioneers of rotisserie/fantasy baseball, including Glen Waggoner, now the executive editor of ESPN books. There’s also a video clip of WSJ “fantasy sports expert” Nando DiFino on these fine fellows who revolutionized the way the game is enjoyed, for better or worse, by thousands of […]
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You know baseball is a serious business when Forbes Magazine makes it the subject of a special issue. To which I say, well done, sirs. The issue. titled “Sportsmoney,” is a glitzy combination of thoughtful articles on economic issues, but with a mix of fun tossed in. Editor Michael Ozanian opines on “Baseball’s Golden Age” […]
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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
* I just dropped in, to see what condition my condition was in.
April 9, 2009
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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