Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
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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♦ Baseball Prospectus chose an odd assortment for this list of “10 Favorite Baseball Books”‘ which I suppose could be considered min-reviews. ♦ The Boston Globe published this review of They Call Me Oil Can: Baseball, Drugs, and Life on the Edge, by Oil Can Boyd with Mike Shalin. As regular readers of the Bookshelf […]
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The world lost one of its greatest writers when Ray Bradbury passed away Tuesday at the age of 91. The author of such sci-fi classics as Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, and The Martian Chronicles, among many others, got his start with short stories such as “The Big Black and White Game,” which appeared in […]
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♦ The Austin American Statesman posted this review of Lefty: An American Odyssey, the biography of an underrated hurler for the New York Yankees in the 1930s-earl 1940s. Upshot: “…”Lefty” charms not for the way it tells the story of a life but for the way it captures the way Gomez saw and experienced the […]
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♦ James Bailey takes a look at Marietta College Baseball: The Story of the ‘Etta Express in this review. ♦ I did an interview with Paul Staudohar last week, the results of which will be posted as a podcast in the near future, While Googling around for some info on him (among other things, he’s […]
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Louisiana Voice (Tagline: “Politics at its worst!”) posted this review of Dirty Rice: A Season in the Evangeline League, by Gerald Duff. Upshot: “If you are a fan of the grand old game and you are into baseball lore, this book is for you” (isn’t that kind of the same thing?). Slim pickings today, folks.
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What does this say about society when a couple of guys wishing to raise $6,000 to fund their graphic novel about baseball players and flesh-eating monsters get more than 1,100 folks to pledge more than $38K…with 25 days left to go!
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MLB Reports reported on David Stinson’s Deadball: A Metaphysical Baseball Novel. Upshot: “…David Stinson accomplished his mission. I read. I learned. I experienced. I thought. I questioned the baseball past and starting looking to my baseball future. I am. Therefore baseball is the answer. The Metaphysics of Baseball. Welcome to Deadball.” The Jackson (Miss.) Clarion […]
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One of the “problems” working on my book is that I haven’t had as much time to read other books. Several authors have been kind enough to send me their work and I apologize for be so slow to get to them and hope to remedy that in the near future. At the moment, I’m […]
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♦ In its Sunday edition, the Boston Globe published this roundup of sports book reviews, including A People’s History of Baseball by Mitchell Nathanson and Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick by Paul Dickson. Thumbs up for both books. ♦ The Lemuria Bookstore Blog offers mini-reviews for three baseball novels: The Art of Fielding, The Might […]
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♦ The London Free Press (Ontario) published this piece on Calico Joe. Upshot: Calico Joe has home run power. The baseball portions, particularly the first 100 pages or so, are more delicious than a Fenway frank. But Grisham saves his heaviest hitting in the 198-page Calico Joe for the second half, where push comes to […]
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♦ Bailey’s Baseball Book Reviews posted this one on Grisham’s Calico Joe. Upshot: “We’ve now had baseball tales from two of the literary world’s heavyweights in the past three years. Both have failed to live up to expectations.” [The other one is Stephen King’s novella, Blockade Billy.] ♦ Bailey also offers this on Just a […]
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TAOF is now in paperback, so I guess it’s time for another round of fawning articles. (I found it interesting when I saw it at my local Barnes and Noble: there was a “sticker” on the cover that declared: A New York Times Book review BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR It has obviously been designed […]
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John Grisham’s Calico Joe was number one on The New York Times Bestseller list two weeks ago; now it’s number three, (It has been explained to that the list as printed in the Sunday book supplement is two weeks behind the on-line version, but I can’t say it makes much sense to me.) Needless to […]
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Not much today, boys and girls. ♦ BosoxInjection, a Red Sox-centric blog, posted this review of Extra Innings, Bruce Spitzer’s novel about the “reanimation” of Ted Williams in the year 2092. ♦ The Washington Times offers this review of Calico Joe. Upshot: “With Father’s Day approaching, “Calico Joe” is a book guaranteed to make Pop […]
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♦ Recently “discovered” At Home Plate, a nice little baseball site that posts the occasional review. Recent titles include Long Taters: A Baseball Biography of George “Boomer” Scott The Greatest Minor League: A History of the Pacific Coast league, 1903-1957 Hit By Pitch: Ray Chapman, Carl Mays, and the Fatal Fastball Wherever I Wind Up: […]
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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
