Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Some vacation. Actually it was no vacation at all. This is the first time since Aug. 1 I’ve been upright, pain-free, and clear-headed enough to post. Following my 11-seconds of fame as one of the first-pitch-throwers at a Trenton Thunder game, I’ve been suffering with a respiratory infection that had me feverish, coughing, and otherwise […]
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* The New York Times published this review about Ballplayer: Pelotero, a film documentary about baseball in the Dominican Republic. Upshot: “Forget feel-good boys-of-summer tales. This film shows a shady business in which scouts and the teams they represent try to manipulate teenage players, and to some extent the players do some manipulating of their […]
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Came across an interesting website recently: Forgottenbooks.com. I think it’s worth it to reproduce their mission statement in its entirety 1,000,000+ Free Books by Forgotten Books! You have reached the world’s largest online library of high-quality eBooks. Forgotten Books is an independent book publisher, boasting over 1,000,000 different titles, and offering all of our titles […]
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I often wonder why some of our most intellectual writers would want to do baseball. Perhaps, as Star Trek‘s Mr. Spock said in the episode “Shore Leave” (Geek alert!), “The more complex the mind, the greater the need for play.” So when a George Will or a Tom Olpihant or a Doris Kearns Goodwin starts […]
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Jacqueline Cutler at the Star-Ledger published this piece on the Chaim Potok novel. This slips under a lot of folks’ radar. Say what you will about the author (many years ago I worked with S.L. Schneiderman, a charming gentleman who translated AJCongress press releases for the Yiddish press), who knew him and loved to opine […]
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* A couple of reviews on John Grisham’s Calico Joe, one yea (“Calico Joe is his first baseball themed book and it didn’t disappoint.”), one nay (“Grisham’s work lacks the meat and potatoes to satisfy this reader’s appetite for page-turning substance. It’s a slim book that perhaps would have made a much better short story […]
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by Arnold Hano. Da Capo Press, 2004. This is one of those things you always figure you’ll get to, like a New Yorker visiting the Empire State Building or The Statue of Liberty. It will always be there, so you figure you have time. Well, Hano will be receiving the the Hilda Chester Award, which […]
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♦ Macleans, Canada’s version of Time magazine, ran this review of Harvey Araton’s Driving Mr. Yogi: Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry, and Baseball’s Greatest Gift. Upshot: Well, there isn’t any per se. “After years of steroid scandals and cold-hearted business decisions, Araton has given us an old-fashioned story about the redemptive power of baseball.” The writer […]
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♦ The Knoxville News published this review of native son R.A. Dickley’s Wherever I Wind Up. Upshot: “t is rare to find a baseball book by an insider that dishes no dirt. It is even rarer to find a professional athlete willing to acknowledge his own mistakes. In “Wherever I Wind Up,” R.A. Dickey reveals […]
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My daughter attends NYU, which is where I eventually learned of this course taught by the school’s president, John Sexton, during a Parent’s Weekend last fall. “Baseball as a Road to God” is this subject of a front page story in today’s New York Times. Hoping to sit in on one of the sessions, I […]
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I have a handful of podcasts I listen to religiously, mostly on my way to work. It’s very ritualistic. I start each Monday with Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. From then on it’s Pardon the Interruption and Extra Hot Great Minis, a scaled down, one-topic version of Extra Hot Great, one of my favorite pop […]
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Believe it or not, today is Opening Day for Major League Baseball. The Seattle Mariners defeated the Oakland Athletics, 3-1 in 11 innings. In Japan. Sigh. Call me old-fashioned, but I remember when the Cincinnati Reds — the first professional team, back in 1869 — always had the honor of playing the first game of […]
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I’m going to take a leap of faith and assume most of you have read Michael Lewis’ neo-classic. But if you haven’t, or are looking for a real steal, there are a couple of outlets where you can buy it for your nook or Kindle for two bits (kids, ask your grandparents. Oh, all right, […]
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One of the benefits for a bibliophile of being a member of the Society for American baseball Research is all the cool publications that are a part of the package. The two primary annual titles are the Baseball Research Journal, which tends to be more numbers-driven, and The National Pastime, which offers a wide range […]
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Robinson was born this date in 1919, which means he would have been 93 today. Sadly, he passed away almost 40 years ago, way too young. It isn’t necessary to repeat all the sacrifices he made, all the doors he opened. One would hope everyone in this country — baseball fan or not — would […]
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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
Spring cleaning, er, reading
March 7, 2012 · 2 comments
When my wife gave me a kindle for the Hanukka, it was with the understanding that I would bring fewer books into the house. Yeah, that’s not working out too well right about now, as new baseball titles just keep coming. I have been asking for them in Kindle format whenever possible, but it’s not […]
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