Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Recently, I was working on an article about Dave Kaplan, director of the Yogi Berra Museum in Little Falls, NJ. Kaplan and Berra have collaborated on four books, so I headlined the story “Berra’s Boswell.” Thought that was pretty clever, comparing Kaplan (no relation) to the biographer of Samuel Johnson. Then my copy-editor asked about […]
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Fans have been talking incessantly about the Cubs’ failure to win a World Championship in the last 100 years. What often goes overlooked is how they got to that one. If it weren’t for the infamous baserunning blunder by a New York Giants rookie (actually playing in his second season), the Cubs’ futility record would […]
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From the Sports Locker blog.
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A lot has been written over the last couple of days (in the New York area at least) about the firing of Mets manager Willie Randolph. It’s not so much that he was fired as much as how the deed was done. How terrible, the sports pundits cried, to do it in the middle of […]
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From AskMen.com, five obscure facts (well, perhaps for those who visit such Web sites, rather than read about the game): Early MLB teams were not distinguished by their jerseys Jackie Robinson was not the MLB’s first black player The MLB has a long tradition of cheating The MLB’s rules used to allow one side of […]
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Andrea Weaver hosts a tribute site for David Strathairn, the actor who portrayed the knuckle-balling White Sox pitcher in Eight Men Out. She devotes an entire page to his accomplishments as an actor and surprisingly convincing athlete. Factoid: Strathairn’s sone, Tery, played the role of Bucky, one of the little kids who idolized the Sox […]
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The School Library Journal Web site reports: Just in time for baseball season, the Library of Congress (LOC) has assembled a Web clearinghouse devoted to America’s pastime. The simply named “Historic Baseball Resources” features multimedia offerings from the library’s vast trove, including rare images of early games and the original sheet music to “Take Me […]
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Time to play catch-up: From a rival site about baseball book reviews, this piece on Hammerin’ Hank, George Almighty and The Say Hey Kid (another of those books that uses words like “greatest” and “forever” in its title). An oldie, but good: this review of The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, by Douglass Wallop, […]
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in 1923, Babe Ruth hits the first home run at Yankee Stadium’s opening in front of over 72,000 fans. The two-run shot off Red Sox hurler Howard Ehmke helps beat Boston, 4-1. The ballpark cost $2.5 million, the price of a lousy utility player these days. With the closing of the ballpark after this season, […]
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in 1955, Chuck Tanner hits a home run in his first major league at bat for the Milwaukee Braves. He would have another 20 in his eight-season playing career. (Thanks, NationalPastime.com.) His son, Bruce, pitched in 10 games for the White Sox in 1985. Seems like he could have used him over in Pittsburgh, where […]
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In 1913, in a game which features President Woodrow Wilson throwing out the first pitch, Washington’s Walter Johnson gives up an unearned run in the first inning of the home opener but will not yield another for 56 innings. The Senators beat the Yankees, 2-1. (Thanks to NationalPastime.com.)
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This piece from whom I assume is a student at Indiana State University about a recent experience at a conference on baseball literature. Upshot: Because I never saw Mantle run out an infield single, witnessed the smooth stroke of Stan Musial or was ever awed by Brooks Robinson stabbing down a frozen rope on the […]
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In 1969, the Seattle Pilots score all of their runs in the first inning to win their major league debut over the Angels, 4-3. See the table of contents here. More about the book.
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There’s a lot of material that’s fallen by the wayside as I try to keep this blog fresh with the latest in baseball book publishing information. But in the words of the revered philosopher, Regis Philbin, “I’m only one man!” So I’m using this space to try to catch up. Some of the items might […]
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in 1969, Ted Williams makes his managerial debut in front of President Nixon and a crowd of 45,000 at Washington’s RFK Stadium. ‘Tricky Dick’s’ Senators are defeated by the Yankees, 8-4. (Thanks nationalpastime.com) Williams was the subject of a 1970 book, What a Baseball Manager Does, by Roy Hoopes.
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You know you’ve made it when your book appears in a Sunday Times review. In fact, I wonder if there have been studies that have quantified in cold numbers what such an “endorsement” means for sales. One quibble: Olney, a sports writer for the Times and an ESPN commentator, spends too much time talking about […]
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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
* What does baseball mean to you, Diane Cameron?
August 18, 2008
The Capital region writer for the Albany Times-Union weighs in on the meaning of the national pastime.
Tagged as: baseball commentary
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