Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
See here for a headnote and explanation. #52: Matthew Liberatore I got a real education on baseball card lingo from Toppsrippsed.com, most importantly a glossary of so many terms that didn’t exist when I was a mere lad. Folks, this is required reading. As for Liberatore, he gets an “RC” for his rookie card, which […]
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See here for a headnote and explanation. #42: Franchy Cordero As opposed to Frenchy Bordagaray? #43: NL Average Leaders Average leaders? Sounds like an oxymoron. I want above average leaders. That’s why they’re “leaders.” BITD, all the leader cards came consecutively numbered: average, home runs, and RBI for batters; wins, strikeouts, and ERA for pitchers. […]
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Welcome to a new feature when this old man spouts off about things in the game that have become annoying. Since a lot of them are eventually covered in books or other items you can put on a bookshelf, I deem it appropriate. I get a good portion of my leads from Google alerts of […]
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SPOILER ALERT Succession is one of the best — and annoying — TV shows around. Generally, I don’t like shows that glorify the ultra-rich. And I wonder how this is considered a “dramedy,” even though there are some very funny lines in it. My daughter, Rachel, found this Tik-Tok piece from Nameberry.com that theorizes about […]
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My copy of Lindy’s Sports Baseball 2023 Preview arrived in the mail yesterday. This is what it has come to. I couldn’t find it at any of my usual outlets: CVS, the local newsstand, or even Barnes and Noble, so I had to order it online. It may be the last such publication I buy. […]
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At least for serious researchers. To paraphrase a complaint made by Fraser Crane on Cheers, “They can put a man on the moon; why can’t Amazon make a better search function?” I am in the early stages of revising 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. The idea is to add several great […]
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Or a book at least. Baseball-Reference.com posted this somewhat skimpy Year in Review today. Among the interesting bits of “trivia”: Most player page views by state Most team page views by state Most viewed player pages on a single day Top 10 player page views for 2022 And that’s it. Kind of disappointing, especially when […]
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Soap box time. Fred McGriff was named (“elected”?) to the Hall of Fame by the 16-member inaugural contemporary baseball era committee, which considered a ballot of eight candidates whose primary contributions to the game took place after 1980. All dues respect to McGriff — and maybe it’s a generational thing — I have a hard […]
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This may get me kicked out of SABR, but I think I’ve had it with being taken out to the ball game. This is part of every convention. Sometimes more than one if the hotel is in proximity to another field. I attended the Milwaukee event and we went to Miller Park and Wrigley Field […]
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Apropos of my recent post about the things we keep, don’t keep, or don’t get in the first place, I went ahead and purchased a copy of the 2021 Mets yearbook. I was especially curious because of the whole 2020 season having been played under a Covid cloud. Sadly, but not entirely unexpectedly, it was […]
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Because you can put a newspaper on a bookshelf… I didn’t think it was such a big deal when Javier Baez gave the thumbs-down sign in Sunday’s game. Did it really need to generate so much attention from the media? In Tyler Kepner’s column, “In Queens, the Mets Give Their Fans a Bronx Cheer,” in […]
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Pardon me while I wax philosophical for a moment. I recently experienced a blow-out on the Garden State Parkway on the way to work at five o’clock in the morning. I was able to creep to the nearest exit and maneuver into the parking lot of a convenience store from which I called AAA. In […]
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And maybe I’ll love you. (A poor take on the Beatles’ song, “Drive My Car.”) I’ve noticed on a few Facebook group posts questions about autographs. A lot are asked about the first athlete or movie star’s signature they collected. I must admit, that’s never been something that interested me. Back in the day, kids […]
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With apologies to Shakespeare. I received this link from a high school classmate today about a treasure trove of baseball cards found in the attic of a recently deceased 97-year-old. (Thanks, Terry!) I have fantasies about some friend or colleague telling me a loved one wants to just get rid of a bunch of old […]
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why can’t Amazon searches be more specific? Every few months, I look for new titles that are coming out in the near future. For the life of me, I don’t understand why I can’t tailor my search to exclude topics I don’t want, specifically kids’ lit and “romance” novels that somehow feature baseball in their […]
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There’s been some chatter lately about changing the MLB postseason structure. Here’s the synposis: MLB is considering a move in which each league would have three division winners and four wild-card teams making the postseason starting in 2022, sources said. The best team in the league would receive a bye into the division series. The […]
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Once in a while, I will get a communique from an author kindly suggesting his or her book be included in any update of 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. I get it. That’s how I felt when other tomes were selected for various honors the same year my baby was published. […]
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“Who would be your fantasy interview?” I think I speak for a lot of Jewish fans when I say it would be Sandy Koufax. These are some of the questions I would ask, assuming he was bound to answer honestly and not just sit there sipping his wine. What was really behind the decision not […]
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If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you know I have an aversion to hyperbole. Words like “greatest” or “best” or “ever” or “forever” have always raised a red flag for me because the majority of the time, they’re not. It may be unfair because I haven’t read this one save […]
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is available on Amazon.com,
In my most recent "day job," I was the sports and features editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper, where I hosted another blog. Busy, busy, busy.
I did a profile piece on the award-winning cartoonist Arnold Roth and he was nice enough to "immortalize" me.
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
Time begins tomorrow
March 27, 2024
Remember all those posts about the decline of the annual baseball magazine? The same could be said for baseball previews in newspapers. There was a time when I used to collect these things, with the the help of my friends across the country. They were different from the magazines in that they had writers who […]
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