Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Spitball Magazine announced the finalists for the publications annual CASEY award for best baseball book of the year. The titles include: Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan, by Robert K. Fitts Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick, by Paul Dickson Connie Mack: The Turbulent and Triumphant Years, 1915-1931, by […]
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(To borrow The New York Times‘ motto) Marty Appel recently revised his helpful list of baseball titles that have appeared on the Times‘ best-seller list. The article appears on the Sports Collectors Digest website. As Appel, a former PR director for the New York Yankees, notes there are several familiar books that are conspicuous in […]
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I don’t know about you, but being the curmudgeon that I am, I have trouble with the folks who jump on the baseball bandwagon once the regular season is over. This ain’t the NBA or NHL, bud, where everyone gets into the playoffs so you don’t have to pay attention until there are just a […]
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Regular followers of the bookshelf know my aversion to discussing fiction. I don’t have enough of a creative writing background to pass critical judgment on the hard work of the novelist. All I can pass on is what I like or dislike. But this summer I was fortunate enough to enjoy back-to-back hits: The Might […]
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Recently finished reading my second baseball novel (!) in the last month; The Greatest Show on Dirt by James Bailey was the first. I’ll be doing reviews of both of them in the near future as my 501 schedule permits. I wanted to contact Joseph Schuster but could find no info either on Facebook nor his […]
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Conducted my semi-regular scan of new titles. Submitted for your interest. It may seem unfair, but I do tend to judge e-books by their cover, especially when they are offered only in that format. It’s an indication of the time and effort the author/publisher puts into the project. Similarly, I’m basing my opinions strictly on […]
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♦ From the Tulsa World, this on on Robert Fitts’ Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan. Upshot: “It is very well-researched and a balanced account, but it occasionally threatens to sag under the weight of such details. Readers need not be fans of baseball to appreciate the sport […]
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Gary Perilloux posted this essay on Full Spectrum Baseball in which he argues that Joseph M. Schuster’s The Might Have Been: A Novel “may just be the Greatest American Baseball Novel ever written. Period.” Discuss.
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by Clay Snellgrove. Loaded Press, 2007. Those familiar with this blog know I’m not big on reviewing fiction. Most of the new stuff I’ve found disappointing but that’s just one man’s opinion. So it’s nice to come across a thoughtful and realistic story such as the one Clay Snellgrove tells in his simply-titled novel, The […]
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Stephen King and Stewart O’Nan recently announced a new joint venture. Shortly after the Boston Red Sox won their first Word Championship since 1918, King and O’Nan published Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season, which was basically a series of back-and-forth emails. This time it’s a fiction eBook, A […]
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Jacqueline Cutler at the Star-Ledger published this piece on the Chaim Potok novel. This slips under a lot of folks’ radar. Say what you will about the author (many years ago I worked with S.L. Schneiderman, a charming gentleman who translated AJCongress press releases for the Yiddish press), who knew him and loved to opine […]
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* A couple of reviews on John Grisham’s Calico Joe, one yea (“Calico Joe is his first baseball themed book and it didn’t disappoint.”), one nay (“Grisham’s work lacks the meat and potatoes to satisfy this reader’s appetite for page-turning substance. It’s a slim book that perhaps would have made a much better short story […]
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I wanted to bring your attention to two authors who have pledged portions of their book sales towards helping worthy causes. * James Bailey, author of the baseball novel, The Greatest Show on Dirt, is teaming up with Books For Troops, Inc., a volunteer group that sends care packages of books to soldiers stationed in […]
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Borrowing a bit from the flash mob phenomenon, here is a collection pf review on Bruce Spitzer’s historical fiction about a “reanimated” Ted Williams. The books were offered gratis in exchange for the readers’ comments. The views expressed here are solely theirs; I have not edited any of the contributions, save for the Bookshelf style. […]
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♦ James Bailey posted this review of Baseball Prospectus’ Extra Innings: More Baseball Between the Numbers from the Team at Baseball Prospectus. Upshot: “Overall, this is a satisfying and thought-stoking release, with much of it coming from a different angle than you might be accustomed to given the heavy dependence in most sabermetric resources on […]
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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
At the risk of offending some of you…
September 25, 2012 · 3 comments
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 […]
Tagged as: Art of Fielding, baseball fiction, John Grisham, Michael Chabon, The Brothers K
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