Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The Life and Thunderous Career of Baseball’s Mr. October, by Dayn Perry. Morrow, 326 Pages, $25.99 Whatever words are used to describe Reginald Martinez Jackson, the Hall of Fame outfielder for the Oakland Athletics and New York Yankees (with less effectual stints on the Angels and Orioles), “complex” has to be among them. And that’s […]
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Two for the price of one this weekend, as the Times publishes an overview of Howard Bryant’s The Last Hero (“Much of this has been told before — most vividly in Aaron’s autobiography, “I Had a Hammer.” Written with Lonnie Wheeler and published in 1992, it explores the tangled theme of baseball and race with […]
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to Bobby Murcer, who would have been 64 today. He published Yankee for Life: My 40-Year Journey in Pinstripes, written with Glen Waggoner, shortly before his death. Also born this date, in 1921, “Prince” Hal Newhouser, subject of A Tiger in His Time: Hal Newhouser and the Burden of Wartime Ball, written by David M. […]
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to Reggie Jackson, born this date in 1946. Reggie (no last name necessary) has been the subject of several books, including Reggie Jackson: The Life and Thunderous Career of Mr. October, the just-released bio by Dayn Perry, which I’ll be reviewing for Bookreporter.com in the very near future. The Jackson collection includes: Also celebrating a […]
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Both the topics and the release dates of these books could be considered appropriate here. The first looks at Frank Deford’s The Old Ball Game: How John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and the New York Giants Created Modern Baseball, while the second considers Mike Vacarro’s The First Fall Classic.
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The Boston Globe has been active on the baseball review front of late. Bill Nowlin, author of several titles on the Red Sox, contributed this piece on Howard Bryant’s bio of Hank Aaron for today’s edition. Yesterday, Bill Littlefield, host of NPR’s Only a Game, considered two baseball titles — Cardboard Gods by Josh Wilker […]
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Born this date in 1928. All’s I know is that I found the TV version of The Bronx Is Burning to difficult to watch, if only because of John Turturro’s ears.
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This top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, May 14. Title Rank General The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime, by Jason Turbow and Michael Duca 1 The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran, by Dirk Hayhurst 2 Moneyball: The Art […]
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The Hall of Fame catcher (and my Montclair “neighbor”) was born this date in 1925. Ain’t it amazing how many books by/about him — on basically the same stuff — there are, including, but not limited to:
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A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging ’70s, by Dan Epstein. Thomas Dunne, 2010. For many fans of a certain age, the 7os are too quickly becoming “the good old days. ” Man, that sounds strange. But as the fan base changes in demographics, books like Big Hair and Plastic Grass will […]
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I was reading this New York Times review of Howard Bryant’s new biography, The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron, when the title hit me. The Last Hero. What does that say about us? Are heroes just for kids? Have we become so jaded that such an idea seems old-fashioned? I probably say this […]
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to Willie Mays, who turned 79 yesterday.
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This week’s best-selling baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, May 7. Title Rank General The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime, by Jason Turbow and Michael Duca 1 The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran, by Dirk Hayhurst 2 Moneyball: The […]
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The Hall of Fame pitcher passed away today at the age of 83. Roberts was still in the majors when I was coming to the game. I can picture one his last baseball cards in my mind (and here on the page). One of the things I always admired about him — especially in this […]
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The Emerald Guide to Baseball, published by the Society for American Baseball Research, is now available. The new edition includes Opening Day rosters and a “notated Umpires Register,” among other items. You can read my original post about the Guide here.
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Born this date in 1919. You can read (most of) this baseball lifer’s 2002 memoirs (527 pages worth), Safe by a Mile here.
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I challenge anyone’s imagination to think of a time before 24-hour cable sports coverage. Before the Internet. Before sports-talk radio. Before TV coverage (before color coverage). Fred Stein can. The author of Under Coogan’s Bluff: A Fan’s Recollection of the New York Giants Under Terry and Ott grew up in an age when newspaper ruled […]
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“Olney make believe…” Sorry, I can never keep that name straight. The natural tendency is to dyslex it into “only.” ESPN baseball writer/broadcaster Buster Olney was the guest on the latest Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me‘s “Not My Job” segment. I felt kind of badly for him. There was zero response to Peter Sagal’s introduction. […]
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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
* Bookshelf Review: The Underground Baseball Encyclopedia
May 6, 2010 · 1 comment
Baseball Stuff You Never Needed to Know and Can Certainly Live Without, by Robert Schnakenberg. Triumph, 2010. Schnakenberg takes his love for pop culture (anti-culture?) and puts a national pastime spin on it in this little faux-reference volume. The connection between PC and baseball has been handled in more serious veins by Jonathan Fraser Light […]
Tagged as: baseball humor, baseball reference, trivia
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