Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
This one of five top choices comes from The Washington Post Book Blog, Shortstacks.
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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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From the One Minute Book Reviews blog, this mini-rev of a cuh-lassic. Upshot: “…written for adults but likely also to appeal to many teenagers.”
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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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MyrtleBeachOnline’s sports columnist Sean Horgan offered a list of 20 great sports books, including the following baseball titles, listed in his order: The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, (Bill James, 1986) This book changed the way many people looked at baseball, encompassing history, anecdotes and statistical analysis. The Great American Novel (Philip Roth, 1973) Roth […]
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The inspiration for Bernard Malamud’s epic baseball novel, The Natural, died this date in 1972. His name kept popping up whenever a star-struck fan stalked a celebrity, becoming part of pop culture, surfacing in some very strange places. Like on the TV series Beverly Hills, 90210, according to this episode synopsis from season 10: During […]
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From BookClubClassics.com, this list of fiction and non-fiction classics. No reviews, just links to Amazon.
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Cynthia Crossen wrote this awkward analysis of Malamud’s classic for a couple of weeks ago, trying to put it in a modern context. Guess what? You can’t. The piece is subtitled, “The Hero of Malamud’s ‘The Natural’ Wouldn’t Make [sic] With Today’s Pros.” Some time ago, I interviewed the sons of the late Mark Harris […]
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From the New Haven Review, this lengthy critique by Peter Ephross of this overlooked classic by Eliot Asinof.
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from the Scooter Chronicles blog. Upshot: As far as baseball books go, I can see why this ranks amongst the best. I don’t know from experience, or from reading anyone that has said so, but I get the feeling that it’s a very accurate description of what life could have been like playing for a […]
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Following the Home Run Derby before the All-Star Game, The Toronto National Post posted this story comparing Josh Hamilton, who had 28 homers in the first round of the competition, to the fictional Roy Hobbs. The writer goes on to list a few more baseball flicks in the spirit of the hallowed event.
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From The Baseball Toaster
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From The Juice blog on Baseball Toaster: Let’s start with a baseball book. You should read Buzz Bissinger’s (yeah, that guy) Three Nights in August. It’s not a perfect book, as Bissinger’s dislike of Moneyball elements demonstrate. Even if you have a sabermetrical view of the game, it is hard to deny the charms of […]
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His name might not be as familiar as David Halberstam or Maury Allen or other prolific baseball authors, but Jules Tygiel was a master of the social importance of the game. He wrote several volumes about Jackie Robinson, but managed to keep his material fresh and pertinent. Tygiel passed away yesterday at the age of […]
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On the 20th anniversary of the publication of Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks: The Ultimate Huide to America’s Top Baseball Parks, Baseballmusings.com reports on its author, Bob Wood. This is definitely one title in desperate need of revision, bot only because there have been so many new ballparks built since, but in the change in […]
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In the current issue of ESPN The Magazine, Rick Reilly writes about a high school pitcher who deliberately threw at a home plate umpire, instructing his catcher to let the ball go on through. You can read that piece here. The scenario is eerily reminiscent of a scene from Philip Roth’s The Great American Novel […]
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Mark Harris, author of Bang the Drum Slowly and other seminal works of adult baseball fiction, passed away a year ago due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 84. His 1956 novel about the relationship between star pitcher Henry “Author” Wiggen (think Tom Seaver combined with Jim Bouton) and his doomed catcher, […]
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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
* And now MY tops list
October 29, 2008
Humbly submitted via the pages of ForeWord Magazine, this non-fiction list of RK’s “essential” baseball reading. I’ll be working on a fiction version soon.
Tagged as: baseball books, Mini-reviews, Rankings
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