Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
I remember when it used to be a real coup to get the AL Red Book and NL Green Book. As a kid, I used to write a very polite, respectful letter to the powers that be, requesting these fun, fact-filled books (I especially like the pronunciation guides and detailed descriptions of the teams’ uniforms […]
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In my “travels,” I’ve come across a few other book review sites. In the interest of literary cooperation, I’m listing them here for your perusal: The Baseball Book Blog. Seems to be a frequently-updated list of baseball bestsellers according to Amazon.com, with some other book news. The Baseball Book Review. Just what it says: reviews […]
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For my recent birthday, my daughter bought me the Baseball ScoreCast from a local Brookstone. It’s kind of cool. A small gray digital device that keeps track of every game in real time (well, perhaps not real real time; there can be a lag time of several minutes, depending on satellite reception. The ScoreCast also […]
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The publishing company, not the beer manufacturer. Wait, do they even make Ballantine anymore? I’m showing my age. Anyway, according to an item in the Publisher’s Weekly Web site, this will result in “10 to 12 titles annually, ranging from celebrity sports books to nonfiction and reference.” “ESPN Books has gone through a number of […]
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From the NY Daily News, this article about the demise of Paperbacks Plus, the last independent bookstore in the Bronx. …every Yankee baseball player-cum-author has held a book signing at Paperbacks Plus, including Yogi Berra, Paul O’Neill and Derek Jeter. “Every Yankee player who’s ever come through here has been super nice to everyone, especially […]
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From RotoNation.com, this piece on the plans for the financial stalwort’s newest “toy,” which was the brand old newspapers put on the sports department. Because it was fun. You play it, see? Sheesh.
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for those interested in such things. Spring 2008 Newsletter This issue’s reviews and features include: Dreaming Baseball, by James Farrell. Reviewed by Leverett T. Smith, Jr. Baseball Magic, by Jay Martin. Reviewed by Robert W. Hamblin. Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Legends: The Truth, The Lies, and Everything Else, by Rob Neyer. Reviewed by […]
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Pat Jordan, who wrote about the difficulties of trying to interview Jose Canseco on Deadspin.com, does it again for Slate.com, this time with Josh Beckett, who declined the honor of a New York Times’ profile. This has become the curse of modern sports journalism. Writers and fans alike no longer get to know the object […]
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[This appears as a sidebar to the “Class in Session” article in the May/June 2008 issue of ForeWord Magazine.] And now a word from our druggist Raymond Angelo Belliotti’s Watching Baseball, Seeing Philosophy devotes a chapter to Jose Canseco and the questionable use of performance enhancing drugs. The December 2007 release of the Mitchell Report—the […]
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This piece from the Christian Science Monitor continues the theme put forth by Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Legends. (So is this going to forever plague the reader when it comes to the autobio/memoir genre?)
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The Wall Street Journal published this item about the long-in-the-tooth pioneers of rotisserie/fantasy baseball, including Glen Waggoner, now the executive editor of ESPN books. There’s also a video clip of WSJ “fantasy sports expert” Nando DiFino on these fine fellows who revolutionized the way the game is enjoyed, for better or worse, by thousands of […]
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The Phillies catcher/author has the best-selling baseball book at the moment, according to Amazon.com. The only other baseball title is Cubs Forever: Memories from the Men Who Lived Them, by Bob Vorwald (not bad considering it’s not even in stock yet.) Coste’s auto-bio, The 33-Year-Old Rookieis ranked #1 in biographies & memoirs/biographies/baseball; History/United States/State & […]
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It’s not often you scoop The New York Times. Back in November of ’07, I wrote this review on Mike Vacarro’s 1941: The Greatest Year in Sports in which I wrote, “Of course, there’s always a problem, especially in the world of sports, of declaring anything ‘the greatest.’ But it does make for some interesting reflection […]
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Michael Rowe wrote this analysis of modern sportswriting on the Utne Reader Web site. He laments the art of the craft, as was evidenced by such wordsmiths as Ring Lardner, Huey Fullerton, and, more recently, the likes of Roger Angell. “Does sportswriting suck,” he asks, bemoaning the lack of reporting “that tackles an actual ethical […]
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I was listening to my podcast of ESPN’s Baseball Today and though I heard the word “great” mentioned several times in proximity. So I replayed Peter Pascarelli’s show of March 24 and these are the findings. “Great” appears once in the introduction montage of clips from interviews. Pascarelli uses the word 5 times in the […]
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Doubledown Media, LLC (http://www.doubledownmedia.com), announced its newest magazine launch, The Players Club — a magazine by and for professional athletes launched in partnership with New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies All-Star outfielder Lenny Dykstra. The Players Club will be focused on providing athletes with the resources to make well-informed financial and lifestyle decisions. Dykstra, a […]
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According to an item in Publisher’s Weekly, Audible has been purchased by Amazon. Lots of good baseball books available there, so pay the site a visit. Amazon’s promise to complete the purchase of Audible as soon as possible following the completion of its tender offer last week turned out to be a couple of days. […]
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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
* Class in session
May 20, 2008
[This piece appears in the May/June issue of ForeWord Magazine.] Baseball books: Class is in session The notion that baseball is a metaphor for life has been around since man first took bat to ball. In reality, it’s more appropriate to say that the national pastime is a metaphor for education; academic disciplines that baseball […]
Tagged as: baseball book reviews, ForeWord magazine
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