Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
From the Jan. 4 online edition of the Loveland, CO, Reporter-Herald: With the recent success of the Colorado Rockies, baseball in Colorado has gained a new level of interest and popularity. Yet, unbeknownst to many, baseball statewide achieved a high level of competitiveness as far back as the 1920s, at least at minor league levels. […]
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According to a story in the Chicago Sun Times, the Cubs have received permission from the City Council to add 70 “premium-priced ‘bullpen box seats’ along the third base line at Wrigley Field — and install new signage — to wring more revenue out of the 93-year-old ballpark.” City Hall approved the changes because “landmark […]
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In response to a recent entry on artist Kadir Nelson’s We Are the Ship, Bob Kendrick of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, wanted readers of the Bookshelf to know that the museum will display a number of the original paintings used to illustrate the book in an exhibit beginning January 26, […]
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Don’t you just love the Internet? It’s filled with all sorts of treasure. The latest nugget I’ve found is from Manybooks.net, a site for free e-books, available via download for several platforms, which include some rare baseball titles: The High School Pitcher, by H. Irving Hancock The Red Headed Outfield and Other Stories (1920) and […]
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Guest host Frank Deford of Sports Illustrated and HBO talks to former MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent and author Leigh Montville about Babe Ruth and the history of baseball. Vincent also appeared on Rose in 2004 with SI writer Tom Verducci to discuss another Rose: Pete.
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The March 30, 1925 issue of Time magazine featured the first occasion in which baseball was treated as a cover feature. The article regarded the rookie season of future Hall of Famer George Sisler. It’s always interesting to see how language — especially written — was treated in past generations. Before television, and even before […]
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Some books about the teams in the League Championship Series to browse through while you’re waiting for those interminable changes. These are by no means the only or best titles, just general, all-purpose suggestions. As an aside, It’s interesting to note that the ALCS features two of the original teams, while the NLCS has two […]
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Most on-line editions of print magazines have a search component. Some offer full-text versions of their articles, while others (the mean ones) only post abstracts, requiring the curious to either pay for a subscription (either full or “web-only”) or the individual item. I’ve done some preliminary research and will be posting the results from time […]
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From the Oct. 11 New York Times, George Vescey’s “Red Sox in the Sky With Diamonds.” The original The “new and improved” version See the “who’s who” here
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From the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, an extensive interview with the artists James Bassler, son of major leaguer catcher Johnny Bassler who played from 1913-14 with the Cleveland Naps and, after a seven year absence, returned for another seven years with the Detroit Tigers (1921-27). He compiled a lifetime .304 batting average with a […]
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The New York Public Library is hosting this marvelous collection of old-tyme baseball images. Some are in uniform, others more formal, and others staged “action” shots. The Albert G. Spalding Collection includes photographs, prints, drawings, caricatures, and printed illustrations related to baseball and other sports gathered by the early baseball player and sporting-goods tycoon A. […]
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<p>Several sources have produced extensive bibliographies on material about Jackie Robinson, including:</p> <ul><li><a href=”http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/robinson/jrrel.html”>Baseball and Jackie Robinson</a>, by The Library of Congress</li> <li>The Baseball Hall of Fame offers a "<a href=”http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/library/biblios/robinson_jackie.htm”>selected bibliography</a>"</li> <li>The Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles produced an extensive page of "<a href=”http://www.aafla.org/9arr/JackieRobinson/jlinks.htm”>Links to other Jackie Robinson and Baseball sites</a>"</li></ul>
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The following Q&A session with Cal Fussman, author of After Jackie: Pride, Prejudice and Baseball’s Forgotten Heroes — An Oral History, appeared on ESPN.com. Fussman, a contributing editor for ESPN The Magazine and Esquire magazine, compiled interviews with over 100 former major leaguers and other prominent members of society. The dialogue below is reproduced in […]
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Who would have thunk it? The co-author of the printed version of Ken Burns’ Baseball documentary claims he was never much of a baseball fan, prior to the project. The reason is reminiscent of Ray Kinsella’s rationale in Field of Dreams: I’ve never liked baseball much, in part because my father has always loved it […]
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Baseballinternational.com has a separate link for titles about baseball in far away lands. While by no means complete — most of the books are less than five years old — there are a nice bunch of volumes about the game as played in Japan and Asia, Italy, Australia, Cuba and Latin America, and the Caribbean. […]
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by Kerry Yo Nakagawa. Rudi Publishing, 2002. Since Horace Wilson, an American schoolteacher in the “land of the rising sun,” introduced baseball to his students in 1872, Japanese have been mad for the game. The author, a writer, actor, filmmaker, and director of the Nisei Baseball Research Project, chronicles this fervor. Like their European counterparts, […]
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by William C. Kashatus. Penn State Press, 2006. Albert Charles “Chief” Bender was one of the best pitchers of the early 20th century, a stalwart for Connie Mack Philadelphia Athletics from 1903-17. During that time (with a one-game comeback in 1925 with the Chicago White Sox) he won more than 210 games and compiled an […]
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by Doug Feldman. Unversity of Nebraska Press, 2006. Fans of a certain age will recall some of the great collective let-downs in the game ‘s history: After cruising for most of the 1951 season, the Brooklyn Dodgers let the New York Giants catch them. The Philadelphia Phillies were running away with the pennant in 1964 […]
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<p>In this corner, wearing a red cover, <em>Who’s Who in Baseball. </em>In the other corner, changing many times over the years, <em>The Baseball Register</em> published by <em>The Sporting News.</em></p> <p><em><strong><span style=”font-size: 1.2em;”>Who’s Who in Baseball</span></strong></em></p> <p><em><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=800,height=979,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/kentwwib_2.JPG”></a><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=800,height=979,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/kentwwib_3.JPG”><img title=”Kentwwib_3″ height=”306″ alt=”Kentwwib_3″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/kentwwib_3.JPG” width=”250″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: […]
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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
Financial Report: Covering Bonds
August 9, 2007
I was listening to the Mets game today and came in the middle of a comment from one of their announcers. All I got was the suspicion by someone that Hank Aaron might have received payment for his congratulatory message to Barry Bonds following the record breaking home run. Now, coming in the middle of […]
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