Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Michael Rowe wrote this analysis of modern sportswriting on the Utne Reader Web site. He laments the art of the craft, as was evidenced by such wordsmiths as Ring Lardner, Huey Fullerton, and, more recently, the likes of Roger Angell. “Does sportswriting suck,” he asks, bemoaning the lack of reporting “that tackles an actual ethical […]
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This piece from whom I assume is a student at Indiana State University about a recent experience at a conference on baseball literature. Upshot: Because I never saw Mantle run out an infield single, witnessed the smooth stroke of Stan Musial or was ever awed by Brooks Robinson stabbing down a frozen rope on the […]
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Came across this piece on one of my Google searches. It’s dated (2003), but there still valuable information to be gleaned.
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Bearing in mind that SI is a weekly, and ESPN a bi-weekly… Sports Illustrated ESPN The Magazine Cover boy(s) “New generation of Stars,” featuring Ryan Braun, Justin Upton, Troy Tulowitzki, Jacob Ellsbury, Clay Buchholz, and Ryan Zimmerman C.C. Sabathia Lead Story Tulowitzki profile Sabathia profile Sidebars(s) Five future stars (Cameron Maybin, Ryan Braun, Jay Bruce, […]
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This will be the last season for the homes of both New York teams. Losing Shea Stadium is no big deal; it was a cold, cavernous ugly concrete structure from day 1. Good riddance to bad rubbish. But Yankee Stadium is a cathedral and the though of it being demolished is truly a sad one.
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From a Feb 15 press release from the Oakland A’s: The Oakland A’s today announced that they have agreed to terms with free agent catcher Matt LeCroy on a minor league contract. LeCroy will be a non-roster invitee to spring training. The A’s also announced that non-roster invitee catcher Jeremy Brown announced his retirement….Brown was […]
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Steve Kettman submitted this rather lengthy Letter to the Editor to The New York Times (Dec. 19) in which he states, among other things, that the Mitchell Report “immediately recasts the importance of the small library of books documenting — and in some cases, shaping — baseball’s steroid era.” This should be taken with a […]
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An excerpt from the press conference: Commissioner Selig’s response: Who says only Americans really care about the steroids scandal? One more response: A commentary by Sports Illustrated‘s redoubtable Tom Verducci. Another from the Business of Baseball Web site. And an in-depth piece from Editor and Publisher, of all places. This one is interesting, because it […]
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Whatever happened to Joe Garagiola? or a time back in the late 1970s-early 80s he seemed to be all over the place: baseball color man, game show host, the Today Show. Where’s he been for the last 15-20 years? Working on a new book, it seems, a follow up to his successful Baseball is a […]
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Two baseball titles account for 10 percent of “Books That Changed Men’s Lives,” according an Oct. 3 entry on Amazon Bookstore’s Blog. I’m guessing these are not in any kind of order, but Michael Lewi’s Moneyball is listed second. I daresay the most unusual addition to the eclectic list (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns? The […]
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You would have thought that George Steinbrenner had learned his lesson. From UPI, Oct. 26: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is the top recipient of baseball cash among the candidates for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations. An analysis of contributions by USA Today shows that diehard Yankees fan Guiliani has scored more than […]
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Another piece from Slate.com about the Rockies, who caused a star awhile back because of their penchant for looking heavenward for strength. While the piece, a reprint from 2000, looks primarily at football, the subject of religion applies across sports lines. It also links to the Rockies’ “emphasis on Christianity first reported by USA Today […]
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Here is the real reason the Indians lost to the Red Sox from a random cross section of sources. From Poynter.org From King Kaufman on Salon.com From the Christian Science Monitor From Maine Today From Wikipedia
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In an op-ed piece in Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal of Oct. 22-28, Eldon L. Ham, an adjunct professor of sports law and society at Chicago-Kent College of Law, argues persuasively about “An indisputable need for replay.” Replay opponents steadfastly argue that baseball is a 162-game marathon, not a sprint, and therefore all its imperfections […]
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Every year, networks and stations broadcasting the playoffs and World Series try to create a buzz for non-baseball fans, informing them, basically, that they’d be morons not to watch these games. I can’t say for certain that the spokesman are not hardcore fans, but regardless, they can be quite annoying in their exuberance. Herewith, a […]
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Is it just me, or does this message, sent yesterday by the Mets, have a familiar ring to it? (Actually, there will be no rings for the Mets this year…): Dear Mets Fan: All of us at the Mets are bitterly disappointed in failing to achieve our collective goal of building upon last year’s success. […]
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Charges of “ism” — racism, sexism, agism, etc. — always make for hot topics and the media loves to jump on any information, sometimes a bit too quickly, or without fully understanding the material/source/etc. Case in point: In the Aug. 13 edition of Time magazine, Katie Rooney asks the button-pushing question “Are Baseball Umpires Racist?” […]
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I was listening to the Mets game today and came in the middle of a comment from one of their announcers. All I got was the suspicion by someone that Hank Aaron might have received payment for his congratulatory message to Barry Bonds following the record breaking home run. Now, coming in the middle of […]
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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
* It's not baseball per se, but…
May 9, 2008
This piece from the Christian Science Monitor continues the theme put forth by Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Legends. (So is this going to forever plague the reader when it comes to the autobio/memoir genre?)
Tagged as: autobiographies, memoirs
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