Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
PBS recently announced that it will air The Tenth Inning, the new Ken Burns documentary on baseball, in the spring of 2010. The special will coincide with a re-broadcast of the original nine-part documentary, which debuted in 1994 and was seen by more than 48 million viewers. The Tenth Inning follows baseball’s trajectory from 1993 […]
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From our friend Greg Spira comes this link to LibraryJournal.com’s annual baseball feature. Among the usual share of biographies and memoirs, histories, and social commentaries are such themes as: Yet another biography about Yogi Berra, this one by homonymic author Allen Barra, and one on Walter O’Malley by Michael D’Antonio Ira Berkow’s bio of Lou […]
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Judging by the email I’ve received about The Bookshelf, I would guess that many of you are of an age before the Internet made instant gratification an inalienable right. If you wanted “the latest” information on the upcoming baseball season, you got it from from the annual magazines that came out in the early spring, […]
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This is the time of year when home gardeners (of which I am one) look forward to receiving their seed catalogs. I also enjoy getting the latest from the publishing world. Today I received the Ivan R. Dee catalog, which includes the following baseball titles: Catcher, by Peter Morris — The author of such neo-classics […]
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This piece by Bryan Curtis, a senior editor at The Daily Beast, tries to break down which pro sport really deserves to be known as “the” national pastime. The NFL is really making a push for that designation. “It recently sent out a 29-page white paper [clickable via the NY Times article] that professional football […]
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From Beyond the Box Score, this review of Brad Snyder’s book of the baseball rebel.
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Seeking to make the most from the opportunity, Columbia University Press posted this little update after Charles A. Alexander, author of Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era (published by CUP in 2002), was interviewed the other day in The New York Times. I inadvertently omitted his book from a brief listing of others […]
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If the Yankees spend $180 million on a player but no one comes to the stadium to watch him — if people can’t afford the price of admission — does his play count? This piece in today’s New York Times takes a look back at what it was like for the national pastime during the […]
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In keeping with the policy NPR seems to have about replaying its best bits during the week between Christmas and New Years, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, hosted by Peter Sagal, featured a few prominent guests from the “Not My Job” segment, including Sen. George McGovern, Leonard Nimoy, Garrison Keillor, Jimmy Carter of the singing […]
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Sal Yvars, the catcher for the New York Giants who spilled the beans about sign stealing during the famous playoff game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1951, died Dec. 10 at the age of 84. Richard Goldstein does his usual excellent job in the NY Times‘ obituary. Yvars, the Giants’ back-up receiver from 1957-53 (with […]
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Lou Limmer was a power-hitting first baseman for the Philadelphia As in the early 1950s. In 1954 — his only full season, he hit 14 home runs. That may not sound like much, but it was good enough for a second-place tie on a stinko team that finished in the basement, 60 games behind the […]
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The Hall of Fame veterans Committee will announce any decision on Monday, Dec. 8. Players who are under consideration include: SINCE 1943 • Dick Allen • Gil Hodges • Jim Kaat • Tony Oliva • Al Oliver • Vada Pinson • Ron Santo • Luis Tiant • Joe Torre • Maury Wills PRE-1943 • Bill […]
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How did the Brooklyn Dodgers get their name? According to a recent edition of NPR’s Studio 360, you can thank Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, who were battling it out to see whose system of electricity would prevail. Mike Daisey narrated a segment on “Tesla vs. Edison”: There was a trolley running in Brooklyn on […]
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Spitball Magazine just announced the finalists for the 2008 CASEY Award, Almost a Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the 1980 Phillies, by William Kashatus (University of Pennsylvania Press) Neil Leifer: Ballet in the Dirt: The Golden Age of Baseball, by Neil Leifer (Taschen) (See here for samples.) Baseball’s Greatest Hit: The Story of “Take […]
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The Chicago Sun-Times recently offered a list of gift books, as comprised by some of its writers. Of the seven suggestions, Two baseball titles made the grade: Babe Ruth: Remembering the Bambino in Stories, Photos and Memorabilia, by Julia Ruth Stevens and Bill Gilbert; and Remembering Yankee Stadium: An Oral and Narrative History of “The […]
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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
* W2W4: Upcoming titles
January 1, 2009
Been receiving some publisher’s catalogs recently. Here are a few 2009 titles to look forward to: >> As mentioned previously, Joe Torre and Tom Verducci have collaborated on the manager’s autobio, coming next month from Random House. >> Bloomsbury will release a behind-the-scenes look at the machinations of baseball’s Valhalla in Cooperstown Confidential: Heroes, Rogues, […]
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