Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Sometimes I wonder, with all the new books coming out every year, why anyone would want to read something they’ve already read before. So many books, so little time. But while working on the 501 Book project I came across several titles in my library that I had never read, which no doubt led to […]
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With the Cardinals in the World Series, George Vecsey made a return visit to NPR, appearing on The Leonard Lopate Show to discuss his latest book, Stan Musial: An American Life. Here’s a review from the Houston Chronicle, just because I liked the caricature so much.
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The Jewish Review of Books (shouldn’t that be Review of Jewish Books?) ran this review of Mark Kurlansky’s recent biography, Hank Greenberg: The Hero Who Didn’t Want To Be One. The piece begins with a reference to Mark Helprin’s short story, “Perfection,” which “re-imagined Bernard Malamud’s “Natural” as an adolescent Holocaust survivor whose otherworldly ability […]
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Take heart, Houston. You may have the worst team in the Majors this season, but you can relive past glorious and otherwise amuse yourselves by reading these Astros-related titles, posted by Ray Kerby and Darrell Pittman on AstrosDaily.com.
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The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum will recognize the twin traditions of baseball and film when, for the sixth consecutive year, it hosts the Baseball Film Festival in Cooperstown, Sept. 30-Oct. 2. Fourteen films, with themes ranging from Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson to the 2003 National League Championship Series, will be screened […]
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Greg Spira passed along this link to an NJ.com review of five New York-centric books, including (with a “symbolic” thumbs up-thumbs down): 1961: The Inside Story of the Maris-Mantle Home Run Chase, by Phil Pepe (-) Donnie Baseball: The Definitive Biography of Don Mattingly, by Mike Shalin (-) Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The […]
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As I continue to do research for my own project, I get a kick when I find some old material that confirms I’m on the right track with some of my selections. Hey, it’s nice to find validation rom time to time, right? So today’s blast from the past is this brief appearance by the […]
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While doing research for my project, I came across this list, published in 2002, of the 100 top sports books of all time as chosen by the editors of Sports Illustrated. Of those 100, “only” 32 were about baseball. The nerve. Anyway, here’s the SI piece, trimmed to just baseball titles, with commentary from the […]
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Juan Marichal, Warren Spahn, and the Pitching Duel of the Century, by Jim Kaplan. Triumph Books, 2011. Note: This review appears on Bookreporter.com. These days, a manager is thrilled if he can get a “quality start” out of a pitcher: six innings with no more than three earned runs. Gone are the days of 25 […]
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Combining two themes here to bring you some recent podcasts. * Craig Robinson, author of the new Flip Flop Fly Ball: An Infographic Baseball Adventure (See all Humor Books), was on the July 19 edition of Slate’s Hang Up and Listen. There are several excellent questions about Robinson’s though processes as he comes up with […]
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From the Baseball-Reference.com Bullpen: San Francisco’s Gaylord Perry connects for his first Major League homer, to beat the Dodgers, 7 – 3. The previous year, Giants’ manager Alvin Dark had remarked that “They’ll put a man on the moon before he hits a home run.” Perry’s homer comes about 20 minutes after the club house […]
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Winning, Losing, and the Remembrance of Things Past, by Lee Congdon. St. Augustine’s Press I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this one. A) I’m on vacation and working as much as possible on my own project, and B) I was fairly disappointed with the book. When I scanned the upcoming titles […]
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If Bernard Malamud’s The Natural was supposedly based on the shooting of Eddie Waitkus, where’s a similar volume on Billy Jurges? On this date in 1932 — 17 years before the Waitkus incident — Jurges, a 24-year-old playing for the Cubs, was shot by a “deranged” fan who threatened suicide and but for his lunging […]
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As of this writing, Derek Jeter stands just four hits away from the magical 3,000. ESPN is working on Derek Jeter 3K, a “documentary” “Set to Air Just Weeks After 3,000th Hit,” according to a press release. Can the souvenir t-shirts, caps, etc. be far behind? The name seems like a natural for a video […]
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Bookshelf shorthand for Take Me Out to The Ball Game, as per Baseball-Reference.com’s Bullpen: To honor the lyricist of Take Me Out to the Ballgame, Jack Norworth Day is celebrated at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. Neither Norworth nor his partner Albert Von Tilzer, who wrote the music, had ever seen a game when they created […]
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Two Men, One Call, and a Game for Baseball History by Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce, with Daniel Paisner. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2011 One of the highlights of the 2010 Major League season was something that didn’t happen. Armando Galarraga, a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, did not get his perfect game — a no-hit, […]
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“Due to a bat boy being hit by Butch Wynegar’s line drive foul ball, Yankees officials enact a new rule mandating the team’s bat boys wear protective helmets during all games.” (BR Bullpen) Pertinent titles: Bat Boy: Coming of Age with the New York Yankees My Bat Boy Days: Lessons I Learned from the Boys […]
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Via Baseball-Reference.com’s Bullpen: Carlton Fisk of the White Sox, plays his 2,226 and final major league game, surpassing Bob Boone’s record of 2,225 for most games caught. (Pertinent title: Carlton Fisk: The catcher who changed “Sox”.)
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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
