Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
In these times of e-publishing, the old saw, “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” might no longer be valid. Oftentimes if you see an e-book with a nondescript cover, it’s a pretty good indicator of what lies within its “pages.” More traditionally, reviewers receive galleys or ARCs — advance reading copies — sent […]
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It should come as no surprise that the ESPN The Magazine article about Ian Kinsler referred to earlier this week on my other blog, has generated some buzz. In the grand scale of things, it won’t matter, but for now, with a routinely dull spring training under way, with A-Rod out of the picture, the […]
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Yesterday I posted about the mockery sportscaster Dan Le Batard made with his Hall of Fame voting privileges. Well, he doesn’t have to worry about that any more. According to this piece on ESPN, he “has been kicked out of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America for one year and barred from future Hall of […]
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With the news of the Hall of Fame Class of 2014 awaiting announcement, there have been scads of article written about players who have or may not have used PED and how to cast a ballot give n this information (or lack thereof). Batten down the hatches, because this issue is going to be with […]
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I’m grateful for this piece in today’s New York Times by Richard Sandomir critiquing the network’s handling of the last game of the World Series. A main point is the use made popular in the last few years of the baseball version of the “sideline reporter,” only much less serious. In football, a SR will […]
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Apropos to a previous entry about poor prognostications, the Las Vegas odds-makers wasted no time in declaring their 2014 World Series favorite: the Los Angeles Dodgers. Call me next October.
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One of my go-to on-line haunts is Baseball Nation. It’s a combination of in-depth analyses, funny/off-beat features, and general bric-a-brac about the national pastime and its place in pop-cultural. Yesterday this intriguing title caught my eye: “The least surprising mystery of all time,” by Jason Brannon. (If it’s not surprising, can it still qualify as […]
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In this case I am the Grinch; I am the one who knocks…Ben Reiter’s list on SI.com, written after the Tampa Bay Rays’ Jose Lobaton beat the Boston Red Sox with a walk-off on Monday night. I think you would agree that the most exciting situations are one where there’s no tomorrow, where everything is […]
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Up until the day I received my first check (and the only one for the year. Seems these things come annually, not quarterly as I had hoped), the most-asked question I received was “how is the book doing?” I know the questioner means well and I appreciate the thoughts. But the truth was, until I […]
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This will be relatively short (and hopefully sweet?), since there’s not much I can add to the dozens of critiques previously offered on the new Jackie Robinson biopic. Although I had read just about everything I could find on the film, I still believe I went in with an open mind. I am predisposed to […]
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All right, let’s get this out of the way. I haven’t seen the movie yet, and will be writing my own review, but I think I’ve heard enough and read enough to spout off. Since this is a biopic “based on a true story,” I had no qualms about listening to Slate’s Spoiler Special for […]
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A couple of years ago my wife, daughter, and I were in Boston for vacation. The Yankees were in town for a weekend series, so we paid beaucoup bucks to see the opener on Friday night. On Sunday we were supposed to take in the opening of some show at the big art museum in […]
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As in I missed posting this earlier. So how’s Peter Rose looking now, given the latest Hall of Fame debacle? Perhaps in an attempt to bring him back into the spotlight, he and his family are the subject of a new reality TV series, Pete Rose, Hits & Mrs., which airs Sunday nights on The […]
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Some choices include: I wasn’t told there would be math on this test. Why can’t the U.S be in one time zone? Is that 12 a.m. midnight? Well, we’re off to a flying start. My first radio interview for 501, my first attempt at posting an “Event” on the Facebook page and what do I do? […]
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This is the first time, unless I just haven’t been paying attention in prior years, that sabermetrics has become such a prominent feature when discussing who should win the MVP. Awards. Nate Silver wrote about it in the A.L. race between Miguel Cabrera and Mike Trout, as did Lynn Zinser for the National League. WAR […]
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In my regular search for items for the blog, I cam across a couple of review for baseball fiction that caught my eye (ouch) and made me stop. A bit of background first. A couple of weeks ago The New York Times ran a front-page review of Telegraph Avenue, Michael Chabon’s latest novel in the […]
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Because you could put a copy of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle on a bookshelf. Evan Longoria is rehabbing with the Durham Bulls who were playing locally recently. Seems Longoria, who is trying to come back from hamstring issues, wasn’t very accommodating to writer Jim Mendalero, who took him to task in this piece. Among […]
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Shyam Das, the arbitrator who voted to overturn MLB’s suspension of Ryan Braun for allegedly violating its drug policy, has been fired. This was the only instance in which the MLB’s ruling was overturned. They were “outraged” at the time, when Das ruled that there were questions about the “chain of custody” of Braun’s urine […]
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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
Guess who’s coming to dinner?
March 28, 2014
Yesterday, I posted a question to the Baseball Books group on Facebook. If you could have dinner with any four authors who have written about baseball — not strictly baseball authors — at the same table, who would they be? My choices: Roger Angell, David Halberstam, Lawrence Ritter, and Bernard Malamud. Of course, four is […]
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