Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
How the tables have turned. A couple of decades ago, it was I who brought back little gifts from business trips and vacations for my daughter, Rachel. Now, it’s her turn. After a recent visit to Cooperstown during the holidays, she brought me these from the Hall of Fame. Plus she actually signed up for a membership […]
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Sort of. As a fan of a certain age, I have trouble reconciling the stature of more recent players voted into the Hall of Fame against some of the legends of the game. Are we really comparing modern candidates with the likes of Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, or Mickey Mantle, to name just three? I know […]
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A thought occurred to me as I was posting about the passing of Ryne Sandberg. Although I still subscribe to the physical edition of The New York Times, I also have the app which sometimes will publish several days ahead of the print version. I have frequently found that an obituary not not appear for […]
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Dick Allen, Dave Parker, CC Sabathia, Ichiro Suzuki and Billy Wagner will become the newest inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame this Sunday. What else to they have in common? They all have books written by or about them. Dick Allen Crash: The Life and Times of Dick Allen, by Dick Allen and Tim […]
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Posting a bit earlier than usual today because we’re heading “down the shore” for a 5K run for organ donor awareness, sponsored by the New Jersey Sharing Network. My wife received a kidney from a friend in her book group, so we do this every year. If you feel like donating to this very worthy […]
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Still shocked that Rickey Henderson passed away at the age of 65, just a few days before his Christmas birthday. I always feel an extra pang of regret when someone younger than me dies. Henderson, was what many might call a colorful character. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2009, accumulating 3,055 […]
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A reminder: 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 posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes (see my piece on “Why Amazon’s search engine sucks“). In addition, occasionally […]
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We boomers lost another hero from our childhood with the passing last week of Orlando Cepeda. I was talking about this with a colleague at work who recently lost an uncle, a die-hard Giants fan. We commiserated over the fact that the players we followed with awe and reverence are elderly now. And as they […]
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The former World Championship manager was elected to the Hall of Fame by the contemporary era committee for managers, executives, and umpires. He becomes the 23rd manager in the hall. After making his debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1986, Leyland led the Florida Marlins to a World Series title in 1997 and won two […]
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♦ It’s been a very long time since I wrote about the Baseball Project, “a supergroup that includes several former members of R.E.M. and makes music exclusively about the sport,” according to this new article from The New Yorker. ♦ Hot on the heels of the new Netflx documentary The Saint of Second Chances this […]
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Used to be around this time of year you could look forward to the baseball annuals from Street & Smith, Athlon, Lindy’s, and a host of other magazine publishers. Of course, back in the day there were many others put out by the likes of The Sporting News, Major League Baseball, Bill Mazeroski, with Baseball […]
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There are 14 first-timers on the Hall of Fame Ballot this year. I doubt any of them will make it on this go-around. (I think it’s time to eliminate the rule that says you’re automatically on the ballot if you play for at least ten seasons.) Only one of these has a book about him. […]
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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
