Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Building on the previous entry about baseball books on the horizon, here’s a quick update on some additional titles announced since then, according to Amazon and in no particular order (from November into 2020). So Many Ways to Lose: The Amazin’ True Story of the New York Mets, the Best Worst Team in Sports, by […]
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Note: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish writing one). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast one […]
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NOTE: I have been posting these things long enough now that a few have commented that the introductory section isn’t necessary anymore. But I’m leaving it in because, to paraphrase Joe DiMaggio when asked why he played so hard all the time, there may be people who’ve never read the best-seller entries before. So on […]
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Haven’t done one of these in a while. Research for my bio on Hank Greenberg in 1938 — scheduled for release next spring via Skyhorse — continues in halts and starts. Just when I think I’m about done with the research phase and am ready to begin writing in earnest, something else comes up I […]
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Or is it “coming down the pipe?” That would make sense, too. Of course, it would have to be a wide pipe… Been in conversation with Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News who does a marvelous job every year with his 30 baseball books in 30 days feature on his “Farther off the […]
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Five new baseball titles from the University of Nebraska Press (“home” of 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die) in their Spring & Summer 2016 catalog, including: Hairs vs. Squares: The Mustache Gang, the Big Red Machine, and the Tumultuous Summer of ’72, by Ed Gruver Dodgerland: Decadent Los Angeles and the 1977–-78 […]
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Maybe I should make it “2L2W,” along the lines of W2W4 (what to watch for, for the uncool out there). After reading his spot-on critique of the Sunday ESPN Game of the Week between the Mets and Nationals in today’s New York Times, I exchanged a few emails with sports media columnist Richard Sandomir. During […]
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I usually speak to my guests after they’ve completed their project, so this is a bit of a departure. It’s good to shake things up once in awhile. By the time you read this, Brad Balukjian, PhD, will be on a cross-country trek in preparation for his new book about a single pack of baseball […]
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According to a story on the Sports Business Daily website, “Recently retired MLB Commissioner Bud Selig has hired Sandy Montag of IMG as his agent to represent him in selling the rights to a book about his life and baseball. Montag will also represent Selig for speaking engagements, consulting and other matters.” I was under […]
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Mickey Mantle. Sandy Koufax. Two heroic symbols of the Boomer generation. Two flawed figures, one of his own accord, one of poor luck. Jane Leavy has turned both of their stories into best-selling biograophies. So what does she do for an encore? Why not another icon, who wrestled with his own demons, although it didn’t […]
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Happy New Year, everyone. Hope nothing but the best comes your way in 2015, including the best baseball books available. Almost done with the non-baseball book and greatly looking forward to catching up on my regular reading, writing, and wrangling authors, filmmakers, and artists into discussing their work on new podcast segments. In the meantime, […]
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Made one of my occasional visits to Amazon for the purpose of seeing what new and exciting baseball titles or coming in the next several months. Here’s a sampling of some, excluding, as usual — although with one major exception — books for younger readers. In nor particular order… * Baseball Explained. Phillip Mahoney, McFarland, […]
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The literary magazine is carrying an interesting series — Bull City Summer — which follows the 2013 exploits of the Durham Bulls. Not sure, at a cursory glance, which is the chicken and which is the egg, since Bull City Summer is a stand-alone website: From the “about” page on bullcitysummer.org: 2013 is the 25th […]
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To paraphrase a Groucho Marx line (and with all due respect to the PETA faction), you can’t swing a dead cat (if that’s your idea of a good time) at the annual SABR conference without hitting a baseball writer. While in Philadelphia, I caught up with a few of them (writers, not cats) to see […]
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This comes from Publishers Weekly.
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This week’s podcast is a little different. Ari Alexenberg is no author (although as a pitcher I’m sure his “authored” some great games over his long amateur career). Rather he is the subject of Coming Home, a documentary currently under production. The film tells the story of his participation in the only season of the […]
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Went to make my pledge to the Kickstarter campaign for The Hall of Very Good e-book project and am happy to report that they have raised, as of this writing, more than $6,600. From the entry: Update 2: Thanks to so much support, we’ve brought on board three more writers: Bill Parker, The Common Man, and […]
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Broadway has its “angels,” folks who love the theater and are willing to contribute bug bucks to see their name in the program or merely for the satisfaction of knowing they’ve helped the arts. Here’s your chance (on a much more affordable scale) to celebrate that genre of ballplayers who are in a kind of […]
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The new year marks the commemoration a few prominent events which serve as the topic for several recently-released and forthcoming books. As the oldest Major League ballpark still in use, Fenway Park is the subject of a great deal of nostalgia and mystique (and no, Curt Shilling, these are not dancers in a New York […]
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As many of you know, I serve as editor of the SABR Bibliography Committee quarterly newsletter. The most recent issues (Nov. 2011), features reviews on Under Pallor, Under Shadow: The 1920 American League Pennant Race That Rattled and Rebuilt Baseball, by Bill Felber; 1921: The Yankees, the Giants, and the Battle for Baseball Supremacy in […]
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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
