Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The National Pastime Museum website offers a collection of essays on My Favorite Baseball Books. The list includes many of the best-known titles as assessed by writers, critics, and other baseball savants. Among them: Bang the Drum Slowly, by Joe Schuster, author of The Might Have Been: A Novel The Natural, by Ryan Swanson, author […]
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It hasn’t even been released yet (official date: March 22) but Stealing Games: How John McGraw Transformed Baseball with the 1911 New York Giants by Maury Klein leads off this Examiner.com article on “The Write Stuff: A look at some of this year’s most notable books.” According to the piece, “The book gives a great—yet […]
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Here’s a link to a previous post I did about the late Dr. King. He was also part of this unique collection of Topps Heritage American Heroes issued in 2009.
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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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Since I posted the first of these on a Thursday, which is known on social media as a time of reflection, I thought to make it a regular thing under this rubric. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get. (Actually, I never understood […]
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One of the great ambassadors of the game, Monte Irvin passed away last night at the age of 96. Irvin was member of that generation of African-American ballplayers who suffered greatly as they integrated the game. Jackie Robinson was the first and most famous, and sometimes men like Irvin and Larry Doby don’t get the […]
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I don’t know who Matthew Price is, but he recently contributed this piece which appeared on the Newsday website on “11 books every New York Mets fan should read.” As a fan of the team myself, I believe every Mets devotee should read just about every book they can on the ball club, so I […]
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I was surprised when I saw the invitation from the Baseball Hall of Fame to attend their press conference introducing Mike Piazza and Ken Griffey Jr. as their newest members-elect. By my way of thinking, the ranking goes something like this: The MLB Network ESPN Sports Illustrated New York Times Wire services TV Networks Local […]
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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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Piazza published a memoir, Long Shot (with Lonnie Wheeler), in 2013, but I wonder if there will be something rushed out to commemorate the honor. Same for Junior, although there really hasn’t been an “adult” book on him.
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It’s holiday time and what’s more timely for baseball fans than a goo book, or some baseball cards, or anything else that can fit on a bookshelf, or perhaps more relevant, under a tree? Another post about opening up some packs. Nom, nom, nom. A tasty treat on Baltimore Baseball & Barbecue with Boog […]
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Since I posted the first of these on a Thursday, which is known on social media as a time of reflection, I thought to make it a regular thing under this rubric. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get. (Actually, I never understood […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Here’s a little departure from the usual conversation in which I chat with authors, filmmakers, et al. During one of my regular visits to Amazon to see what’s coming down the pike, I came across Stealing Games: How John McGraw Transformed Baseball with the 1911 New York Giants by Maury Klein. Now normally I would […]
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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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The late sports radio pioneer Graham McNamee has been named the recipient of the 2016 Ford Frick award for excellence in broadcasting. From the Hall of Fame press release: Graham McNamee, whose national play-by-play of the World Series in the earliest days of radio transformed the one-time opera singer into a household name, has been […]
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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
Throwback Thursday review: This Great Game
January 7, 2016
In a sense, this is the book that launched more than a thousand books, the first in what became an obsession. This Great Game, published in 1971 by Routledge Press under the imprimatur of Major League Baseball, was an anthology, a of marvelous collection of photos and illustrations and narratives from some of the great […]
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