Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
books on baseball, that is, at least according to this blogger. The list includes: The Kid from Tomkinsville The Southpaw The Glory of Their Times Stealing Home The Bill James Historical Abstract
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The Henry Wiggen Blog posted this “sort of” review of one component of Mark Harris’ classy trilogy.
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From Bookchase, this review of Peter Golenbock’s roundly-panned fictional account of Mickey Mantle. As a bonus, here’s a piece on a book that features a section on Babe Ruth, who makes several appearances in The Given Day but it is in the book’s prologue that Lehane renders him most memorable. That section of the book, […]
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Sorry to mix baseball titles, but the Henry Wiggen blog finally reviews Mark Harris’ Bang the Drum Slowly. Upshot: If “The Southpaw” is the baseball version of the Great American Novel, “Bang the Drum Slowly” is the classic American story. In an aside, the writer notes that Robert DeNiro, who played the dying catcher, Bruce […]
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by Jim Lehrer (Random House) Veteran newsman Jim Lehrer considers loss in his newest novel, the story of a young baseball player called upon to serve his country during World War II. Like many young men of the era, Johnny Wrigley had to put his life on hold. A promising young athlete, he is sent […]
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Baseball fan ficiton! In this case, it comes from Aaron Shinsano at the East Windup Chronicle blog.
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I may have done this one before, but I came across it in my Google alerts, so here we go. Tim Morris of the University of Texas at Arlington, has compiled this massive list: This Guide to Baseball Fiction is a combination of bibliographic checklist and evaluative critical guide to over 1,000 works of baseball […]
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gets a non-glowing review in The Washington Times. Upshot: The veteran newsman thinks he has things to say, about baseball, puppy love and the greatest generation. But the way in which he says those things are so bland and so uninteresting and so hackneyed and so cartoonish that one begins to speed through the pages, […]
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The Seattle Literature Examiner posted this piece on the best baseball books that doesn’t so much list or review in itself, save for a mention of Baseball and Philosophy, as it does point to two existing lists, which I replicate here: Baseball Books: A Reading List, via The New York Times (1997-2003 titles) “Baseball fiction […]
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From mentalfloss.com: If there’s one author who bridges the cultural divide between the United States and Japan, it’s Haruki Murakami. The 60-year-old Kyoto native started writing relatively late in life, at age 29, and it was America’s national pastime that inspired him. While attending a baseball game in Tokyo, Murakami saw American Dave Hilton hit […]
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From The Henry Wiggen Blog, this review of the W.P. Kinsella classic and Eric Role Greenberg’s novel.
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Is it just me, or does the premise for this new novel sound familiar? From the publisher’s website: Suicide Squeeze follows super fan, Jamie Mudd, through an unusual Seattle baseball season where he begins to believe that his entries on a scorecard can influence action on the field (my emphasis added). While grappling with the […]
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It’s nice to know people are still reading the classics. This review of the Malamud novel comes from BaseballReflections.com
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From Weaver’s Tantrum, a blog that concentrates on the Baltimore Orioles, this review of Eric Rolfe Greenberg’s classic title.
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Lou Limmer was a power-hitting first baseman for the Philadelphia As in the early 1950s. In 1954 — his only full season, he hit 14 home runs. That may not sound like much, but it was good enough for a second-place tie on a stinko team that finished in the basement, 60 games behind the […]
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To Peter Schilling, Jr. The St. Louis Post Dispatch picked his novel as one of the best books of 2008, to wit: The End of Baseball by Peter Schilling Jr. (Ivan R. Dee, 352 pages, $25). Baseball’s 1944 Brownies live again in this rollicking novel. Owner Bill Veeck shines in fiction, just as he did […]
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Been a bit remiss in recent weeks, so trying to catch up with a roundup of items: BaseballFarming.com offers a list of “Baseball Books to Love,” which includes fiction and non-fiction titles. Prior to 2008, baseball didn’t have to sully itself with official instant replay, but since it did, might as well bone up 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
* Another list of "bests"
July 8, 2009
I participated in a survey of the “best” baseball fiction and non-fiction books from the Hardball Cooperative site. It was an honor to be included with such learned contributors. Of course, one person’s meat is another’s poison; the comment’s made to the Baseball Think Factory, to which a link was posted, indicates that quite clearly. […]
Tagged as: baseball books
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