Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The back page of The New York Times Book Review features a full page advertisement from Bauman Rare Books. I usually don’t pay attention because as much as I lvoe ’em, they’re out of my league, to borrow from a famous title. But a photo of Joe DiMaggio caught my eye and sure enough there […]
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It’s hard to believe it’s been almost 25 years since we first heard about Sidd Finch, the promising Mets hurler who threw in excess of 160 miles per hours, played the French horn, and wore one combat boot on the mound. It may have been nothing but a very elaborate April Fool’s joke courtesy of […]
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From mentalfloss.com: If there’s one author who bridges the cultural divide between the United States and Japan, it’s Haruki Murakami. The 60-year-old Kyoto native started writing relatively late in life, at age 29, and it was America’s national pastime that inspired him. While attending a baseball game in Tokyo, Murakami saw American Dave Hilton hit […]
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From The Henry Wiggen Blog, this review of the W.P. Kinsella classic and Eric Role Greenberg’s novel.
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From SharedReveiws.com, this item on the classic Baseball Encylcopedia,published by Macmillan.
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I went looking online to see if I could find an audio rendition of Updike’s essay, “Hub fans bid Kid adieu.” I know it was recorded during a Symphony Special performance of stories and poems about the national pastime (the recording was released in 2006), but wouldn’t you know it: the two portions of the […]
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It’s nice to know people are still reading the classics. This review of the Malamud novel comes from BaseballReflections.com
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Seeking to make the most from the opportunity, Columbia University Press posted this little update after Charles A. Alexander, author of Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era (published by CUP in 2002), was interviewed the other day in The New York Times. I inadvertently omitted his book from a brief listing of others […]
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Baseball GB posted this review of Roger Angell’s 2004 collection. An amazing amount of the book can be read here, thanks to Google Books. Like any master storyteller, Angell’s work translates well to audio. This sample from audio.com comes from The Summer Game, another collection of his essays that appear mostly in The New Yorker […]
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From Weaver’s Tantrum, a blog that concentrates on the Baltimore Orioles, this review of Eric Rolfe Greenberg’s classic title.
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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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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.
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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 blog 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
* The joy of sections
April 6, 2009
One of the major complaints from fans and (especially) non-fans is that the games take too long. Don’t look at it as a lot of down time; instead perceive it as a chance to catch up on your reading. That’s why I love compilations such as those published by The Washington Post‘s Thomas Boswell and […]
Tagged as: Roger Angell, Thomas Boswell
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