Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
From The New York Times by George Vecsey: “Fay Vincent, a lawyer who presided over Major League Baseball as its eighth commissioner during a time when it was shaken by labor strife, the first shadows of steroid use and, quite literally, a powerful earthquake that interrupted the 1989 World Series, died on Saturday in Vero […]
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What do Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabbathia, and Billy Wagner all have in common? Oh, yeah, sure, they were all just elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. But wait, there’s more. That’s right; they’ve all written memoirs. Ichiro’s book was published in 2004. There are other books about him, including The Meaning of Ichiro: […]
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In the latest Baseball Best-Seller post, I wrote at length about a self-published quickie about the late Bob Uecker. In fact, two more titles have been released since then. Well, it didn’t take long for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel — a more “legitimate” source — to put out Bob Uecker: The Life and Career of […]
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We have all seen these iconic photographs, but how often do we appreciate the artist behind the lens? George Kalinsky was one such shutterbug. He passed away January 16 at the age of 88. Here’s his obituary by Harvey Araton in The New York Times. From the obit: Mr. Kalinsky had wanted to be a […]
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I knew things would go well when I saw the collection of caps behind Tyler Kepner, senior writer for The Athletic and author of The Grandest Game: A History of the World Series and K: A History of of Baseball in Ten Pitches. Like Kepner — and most young baseball fans — I had dreams […]
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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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One of the true characters of the game, Bob Uecker, has died at the age of 90. Here’s his obituary by Richard Sandomir in The New York Times and an article from ESPN. As a reminder that you’re an ex-player much longer than a player, Uecker turned a poor playing career (.200, 14 homers, 74 […]
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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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There something to be said about the heft of a book on your lap that a website, regardless of how visually well done or informative, can never match. While preparing for this review, I couldn’t help but think of the Total Baseball series which produced eight editions beginning in 1989 and ending in 2004. These […]
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Lenny Randle, perhaps best known on the field for trying to blow a baseball into foul territory, passed away last week at the age of 75. (He was also notorious for punching out Texas manager Frank Lucchesi in 1974.) Randle, who played just about ever position except for pitcher and catcher, made his debut with […]
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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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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
