Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
[Note: My spring baseball roundup appears on Bookreporter.com and is reposted here as individual reviews for your convenience.] Harvey Araton tells a touching story in Driving Mr. Yogi: Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry, and Baseball’s Greatest Gift. Reminiscent of David Halberstam’s 2002 The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship, Driving Mr. Yogi is a bit more […]
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[Note: My spring baseball roundup appears on Bookreporter.com and is reposted here as individual reviews for your convenience.] Former Sports Illustrated executive editor Rob Fleder assembled his own literary All-Star team for Damn Yankees: Twenty-Four Major League Writers on the World’s Most Loved (and Hated) Team. The roster includes such “players” as Roy Blount Jr., […]
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My annual spring baseball book roundup appears on Bookreporter.com. Titles include: Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball, by R.A. Dickey and Wayne Coffey Turning Two: My Journey to the Top of the World and Back with the New York Mets, by Bud Harrelson and Phil Pepe Driving Mr. […]
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♦ I don’t usually look at e-books if they haven’t been published on paper as well, but David H. Martinez (The Book of Baseball Literacy: 3rd Edition: Nearly 700 People, Places, Events, Teams, Stats, and Stories – Everything You Need to Know in One Massive Book) has enough of a track record for me to […]
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♦ Recently “discovered” At Home Plate, a nice little baseball site that posts the occasional review. Recent titles include Long Taters: A Baseball Biography of George “Boomer” Scott The Greatest Minor League: A History of the Pacific Coast league, 1903-1957 Hit By Pitch: Ray Chapman, Carl Mays, and the Fatal Fastball Wherever I Wind Up: […]
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♦ The Knoxville News published this review of native son R.A. Dickley’s Wherever I Wind Up. Upshot: “t is rare to find a baseball book by an insider that dishes no dirt. It is even rarer to find a professional athlete willing to acknowledge his own mistakes. In “Wherever I Wind Up,” R.A. Dickey reveals […]
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Congrats to Scott P. from Rochester, winner of the RKBB Facebook friend random selection. The book this time is the paperback edition of John Thorn’s Baseball in the Garden of Eden. Next up: Hit By Pitch: Ray Chapman, Carl Mays and the Fatal Fastball by Molly Lawless.
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My daughter attends NYU, which is where I eventually learned of this course taught by the school’s president, John Sexton, during a Parent’s Weekend last fall. “Baseball as a Road to God” is this subject of a front page story in today’s New York Times. Hoping to sit in on one of the sessions, I […]
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♦ Tom Hoffarth’s latest: Summer of ’68: The Season that Changed Baseball — And America — Forever, by Tim Wendel. Upshot: “Halberstam-esque.” High praise, indeed. ♦ WBEZ, the NPR presence in Chicago, posted this mini-review of 100 Things Cubs Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. ♦ Similarly, Bronx Baseball Daily posted this review […]
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♦ The latest on Tom Hoffarth’s 30/30 list: Double No-Hit: Johnny Vander Meer’s History Night Under the Lights, by James W. Johnson. Upshot: “Details come to life here, and thankfully, we find out much more about “The Dutch Master” than a box score can show.”
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♦ Tom Hoffarth’s latest in his 30/30 feature: Cuban Star: How One Negro-League Owner Changed the Face of Baseball, by Adrian Burgos, Jr. ♦The Columbus (IN) Republic ran this review of The Might Have Been.
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‘Nuf said.
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♦ The latest in Tom Hoffarth’s 30/30 feature: A People’s History of Baseball, by Mitchell Nathanson. Upshot: “The book jacket says Nathan writes with “passion and occasional outrage.” Sometimes it comes off as more bittnerness [sic] or misdirected anger. ♦ The Chicago-Sun Times posted this review of Grisham’s Calico Joe. Upshot: “In baseball terms, Calico […]
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Can it really be 25 years ago since Al Campanis appeared on what might just be the most (in)famous episode of Nightline (when it was a real news program)? Campanis, then the general manager of the LA Dodgers, was on to discuss the lefacy of Jackie Robinson and ended up losing his job for his […]
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♦ Bill Jordan at Baseball Reflections on Tim Wendel’s Summer of 68. ♦ Tom Hoffarth kicked off his annual “30 book in 30 days” feature yesterday with Baseball Prospectus 2012. Today’s book is Trading Manny: How a Father & Son Learned to Love Baseball Again, by Jim Gullo. (Here’s another review from The Oregonian.) ♦ Sticking […]
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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
Review roundup, April 30, Part One
April 30, 2012
This deserves an entry all of its own. The last books in Tom Hoffarth’s 30/30 feature include: Willie Mays Aikens: Safe at Home, by Gregory Jordan. Upshot: Hoffarth’s title for the piece — Aiken’s journey from a prison sentence to a whole lot of paragraphs, correctly punctuated — belies his wrap, in which he describes […]
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