From the category archives:

Essays on baseball

TWIBB: Aug. 27, 2010

August 27, 2010

The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Aug. 27. Title Rank General Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 1 The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran, by Dirk Hayhurst 2 The Game from Where I Stand: A Ballplayer’s Inside View, by Doug Glanville […]

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Bits and pieces

July 31, 2010

Haven’t done one of these in a long time, but a glance at my Google alerts shows more than 500 notices, so here goes. Bruce Markusen at Hardball Times, conducted this interview with Dan Epstein, author of Big Hair and Plastic Grass. HT also ran this review of The Eastern Stars (upshot: “The Eastern Stars […]

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Although I have trouble with the use of words like “best” and “greatest” in titles, when it comes to anthologies, I’m a bit more flexible. The editors of such collections do a fine job assembling excellent works from magazines, newspapers, etc., saving a pack-rat like me from collecting even more material. Two new books celebrate […]

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Earlier today I challenged Mark Juddery to back up the claim in his new book that baseball is the most overrated sport. Tonight, he offers his answer, via email, presented without editorial comment: Here are a few words written just for the Baseball Bookshelf site. (Well OK, it’s basically a reworked version of the book […]

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James Traub has two piece in this weekend’s Times: A critique of The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macorís, by Mark Kurlansky in the book review section (which the critic deems a “charming and finely observed, if somewhat formless, baseball travelogue”), and a profile of Yankees’ reliever Mariano […]

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In today’s installment, the missing words are “Baseball cards,” as discussed in this piece from the Sports Illustrated website on Josh Wilker’s book Cardboard Gods, as per Ted Anthony, who writes about American culture for the Associated Press: baseball-card blogger and memoirist Josh Wilker has come through. The unforgettable “Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told […]

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by Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic, with Andrew Chaikivsky. ESPN Books, 2010 A caveat and a confession: While “hate” may be too strong a word, I “intensely dislike” sports-talk radio. The idea of (supposedly) grown men and women getting apoplectic on the air over Oliver Perez or Ron Artest or Bill Belichick, et al…not my […]

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Former NY Times reporter Claire Smith will be the keynote speaker at the 22nd Annual Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, which kicks off (pardon the football metaphor) on Wednesday, June 2 and runs til Friday, June 4. Having attended one of these, I can tell you that it’s great fun, despite the scholarly […]

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Roger Angell has long contributed excellent essays to New Yorker magazine. Now he has company in Ben McGrath (the next generation?), who wrote this piece on spring training and the possible surprise stars f0r 2010 in the April 7 issue. Now you have a chance to ask your questions of these entertaining writers. From the […]

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