Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
according to Michael Weinreb on ESPN.com’s Page 2 is Veeck: As In Wreck, the autobio of the game’s most maverick front office man (What, you thought the McCain/Palin campaign invented the word?) If there was ever a guy who didn’t take life too seriously, it was Bill Veeck, who made even the St. Louis Browns […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Cubs’ skipper Lou Pienlla and Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon were named managers of the year for 2008. Pinella published Sweet Lou, written with Maury Allen in 1986. He’s got a new one coming out next year from St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne. So can it be long before Maddon has one, too? Managers whose teams […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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 […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The eulogies keep pouring in about this marvelous writer and raconteur. This one, from Maggie Hendricks of NBC Chicago, specifically speaks to Terkel as a baseball fan. This one from NPR.org isn’t baseball-centric, but he deserves the recognition.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
This one of five top choices comes from The Washington Post Book Blog, Shortstacks.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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 […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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.”
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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 […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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 […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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 […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From BookClubClassics.com, this list of fiction and non-fiction classics. No reviews, just links to Amazon.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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 […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From the New Haven Review, this lengthy critique by Peter Ephross of this overlooked classic by Eliot Asinof.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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 […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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
* At the risk of tooting my own horn…
November 26, 2008
Thirteen years in the making. In 1995, I delivered my first “scholarly paper.” It was at Hoftsra University’s centennial celebration of Babe Ruth’s birth and it was a hoot. I spent three days there, listening to all sorts of presentations, visiting exhibits and finally — nervously — making my own. My topic was “The Books […]
Tagged as: Babe Ruth
{ Comments on this entry are closed }