Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Trying to play catch-up once again: Reviews of Michael Shapiro‘s Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball from Itself and Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards, by Josh Wilker, can be found on Meals from the Marketplace. Upshots: Bottom of the Ninth — “he […]
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The recent program at the Burbank Library seems to have sparked national attention to Bouton’s classic. Here are a few more items for your consideration: Our friend, Tom Hoffarth penned this nice wrap-up of the event. “It’s not a stretch to think today of Bouton as a J.D. Sallinger of sports literature,” he writes. “In […]
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The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Noon on Friday, Sept. 27. Title Rank General Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 1 Ball Four, by Jim Bouton 2 The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime by Jason Turbow and Michael […]
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Herewith the final schedule for BALL FOUR TURNS FORTY, presented by The Baseball Reliquary at the Burbank Central Library, on Saturday, Sept. 18. If you go, tell Jim that I said “Hey.” 11:00 am — 12:30 pm Introduction by Terry Cannon and Jon Leonoudakis Opening remarks by Jim Bouton Panel discussion with Q&A on Ball […]
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The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Sept. 10. 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 Baseball Codes: Beanballs, […]
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The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Sept. 2. Title Rank General Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 1 The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime by Jason Turbow and Michael Duca 2 The Natural, by Bernard Malamud 3 […]
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Playing a little catch-up here: Aug. 30 Hideo Nomo, 42: Nomo: The Tornado Who Took America by Storm, by Edmon Rodman Frank Robinson, 75: Robinson has published a couple of his own titles, including My Life Is Baseball (1975), Frank: The First Year (1976), and Extra Innings (1988). Other titles about Robinson include Russ Schneider’s […]
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In the recent entry on the Jim Bouton interview, I wrote about the book’s inclusion in a list of the New York Public Library’s Books of the Century. I mistakenly referred to it as a list of the top 100 books. In fact, the total is closer to 175. Bouton’s contribution to literature is included […]
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The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Aug. 27. Title Rank General Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 1 The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran, by Dirk Hayhurst 2 The Game from Where I Stand: A Ballplayer’s Inside View, by Doug Glanville […]
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I can still picture it in my mind: Reading Ball Four during summer camp days back in 1970. In fact I still have that original volume in my library. So it’s shocking to me that it’s been 40 years since Jim Bouton’s watershed memoir was published. Bouton was quite generous with his time in speaking […]
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The man who hit “the shot heard ’round the world” died yesterday at the age of 86. Here’s the Richard Goldstein obituary in The New York Times. There have been several books about Thomson’s heroics. His home run is a staple of baseball lore in both fact and fictional versions. The Giants Win the Pennant! […]
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Was checking Facebook and saw an entry from Edward Achorn, author of Fifty-Nine in ’84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had, on the 90th anniversary of the day Ray Chapman was hit in the head by a Carl Mays pitch. Chapman succumbed to his injuries the following day. […]
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This announcement comes via The Baseball Reliquary: The Baseball Reliquary presents “Ball Four Turns Forty,” an exhibition celebrating one of the great books in American literature, Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of its publication. The exhibition, which opened on Aug. 9, runs through Oct. 1, 2010 in the lobby […]
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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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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
Bits and pieces
September 17, 2010
Spurred on by the hubbub around the 40th anniversary of Ball Four, Delia Cabe, who hosts the Creative Type blog at Boston.com, had this piece about the best baseball books, not just from her POV, but from those of local celebrities and others. And as the Baseball Reliquary program heralding that anniversary beckons, look for […]
Tagged as: Ball Four, Negro league baseball, Rube Foster
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