From the category archives:

History

Paul Dickson, editor of the popular Dickson Baseball Dictionary, published this double review of Negro L:eague baseball in The Washington Times.

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* Review: Satchel

June 29, 2009

The Christian Science Monitor published this review of Larry Tye’s well-received biography of the Negro League legend. Upshot: It’s about time somebody wrote a good biography of Satchel Paige, the great baseball pitcher, personality, showman, and entrepreneur. In Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend, journalist Larry Tye has done just that. Likewise, […]

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* TWIBB — June 26

June 26, 2009

This week in baseball books, featuring the best-sellers according to Amazon.com on Friday, June 19. Title Rank General Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend, Tye 1 The Yankee Years, Torre and Verducci 2 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Lewis 3 The Science of Hitting, Williams 4 As They See […]

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* The Fab Five

June 23, 2009

books on baseball, that is, at least according to this blogger. The list includes: The Kid from Tomkinsville The Southpaw The Glory of Their Times Stealing Home The Bill James Historical Abstract

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The Providence Journal posted this review of yet another account of the Dodgers’ (and Giants’) move to California. Upshot: To the dwindling circle of Brooklyn Dodger fans, Walter O’Malley will forever remain a despised #@%&*. If they can bring themselves to read it, Murphy’s book will reinforce their notion.

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* TWIBB

June 19, 2009

This week in baseball books, featuring the best-sellers according to Amazon.com on Friday, June 19. Title Rank General The Yankee Years, Torre and Verducci 1 As They See ‘Em: A Fan’s Travels in the Land of Umpires, Weber 2 Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend, Tye 3 Moneyball: The Art of Winning […]

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I was catching up on my Tweets and found an entry by our old friend Peter Sagal referring to an interview he gave to the NY Daily News‘ “Touching Base” blog. It was  quite an in-depth conversation, he notes, “In which I wax on, at great length, about baseball.” While reading through it my spider […]

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Sorry, give me a minute here. The Mets just lost their game with the Yankees when Luis Castillo dropped a two-out POP UP that allowed two runs to score. TWO HANDS, dammit!! Anyway, my review of several books that encompass the Yankees and Mets during interleague weekend appear on the latest posting of Bookreporter.com. Titles […]

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*A blast from the past

June 12, 2009

Another piece of trivia: Phil Rizzuot was a guest on the premier of the popular TV game show, What’s My Line? (Feb. 2, 1950). I was tickled by the formality between the host and the panelists. Compare that with today’s beauts like Deal or No Deal.

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Here’s the audio interview with Zev Chafets, author of Cooperstown Confidential. http://rksbaseballbookshelf.wordpress.com/files/2009/06/zevchafets_raw.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

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Several baseball items have popped up on NPR shows in recent days: Larry Tye, author of the new biography Satchel: The Life and Times of An American Legend, was a guest on Fresh Air. You can hear the show here as well as read an excerpt from the book. *** Brian Lehrer had this segment […]

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* Kudos, Randy Johnson

June 4, 2009

He becomes the 24th pitcher, and sixth left-hander, to notch 300 wins.

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Owen Canfield, a former full-time columnist and sports editor of The Hartford Courant, focuses his now-monthly columnon books about ballplayers whose accomplishments go beyond the ball park. The first is Ira Berkow’s The Corporal Was a Pitcher, the Courage of Lou Brissie. The second is a book on five CDs, Clemente, the Passion and Grace […]

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* Sunday supplements

May 31, 2009

The Sunday papers are great for filling space with features that don’t get dap during the week. For example, the Arizona Republic published this interesting piece on the dearth of real superstars these days, while the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran this reminisence on Harvey Haddix’s near-perfect game.

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The main baseball article is John Heyman’s look at the recent late-inning heroics by the Yankees. Other items include a sidebar on the Tigers’ resurgence and Albert Chen’s recounting of Harvey Haddix’s non-perfect game just 50 years ago.

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From the SABR List-serve: Marc Okkonen’s terrific pictorial book, 2000 Cups of Coffee, is now available for download on the members-only portion of the SABR website. You can find a link to it as soon as you log onto the members’ page. This book contains images of approximately 2,000 major leaguers of the 1900-1949 era. […]

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The May/June issue of ForeWord Magazine, a publication that specializes in small and university presses, carries my feature on nine 2009 baseball titles, including: Under the March Sun: The Story of Spring Training High-Flying Birds: The 1942 St. Louis Cardinal Babe Ruth: Remembering the Bambino in Stories, Photos & Memorabilia Yankee Colors: The Glory Years […]

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* Review: '78

May 11, 2009

From TheHardBallTimes, this review of Bill Reynolds’’78: The Boston Red Sox, a Historic Game, and a Divided City. Upshot: Despite many faults, HBT reviewer Chris Jaffe concludes, “I enjoyed this book far more than I expected to because of its considerable strengths. Though it couldn’t quite fuse its elements, Reynolds didn’t try to force fusion […]

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Would it seem silly to you to devote an entire book that showed a particular baseball was not the one hit by Bobby Thomson in the 1951 playoff game against the Brooklyn Dodgers. That how I felt when I read this piece in The New Daily News on Miracle Ball: My Search for the Shot […]

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Every issue of the classic publication is available through Google books. The first issue: July 1945. Cover price: 15 cents. Tag line: “64 Pages — and Every Word Baseball!” Thanks to John Zajc and Rob Neyer for the item.

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