Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
I always enjoy chatting with creative types about their various baseball projects, but this was was even more fun because I got to relive last year’s trip to Japan. After reading Robert Fitts’ latest — In the Japanese Ballpark: Behind the Scenes of Nippon Professional Baseball — it reminded me of the excitement of being over […]
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What do Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabbathia, and Billy Wagner all have in common? Oh, yeah, sure, they were all just elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. But wait, there’s more. That’s right; they’ve all written memoirs. Ichiro’s book was published in 2004. There are other books about him, including The Meaning of Ichiro: […]
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The irascible, cigar-smoking Cuban pitcher passed away yesterday (Oct. 8) at the age of 83. Here’s his obituary from The New York Times by Bruce Weber; the Boston Herald; and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Tiant enjoyed a spirited career, compiling a record of 229-172 over a 19-year career. He made his debut with the Cleveland […]
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A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes (see my piece on “Why Amazon’s search engine sucks“). In addition, occasionally […]
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Well, spring training is well underway. And this year, pretty much like every year, I promise myself I will keep up with every team, not just the Mets.I finally shelled out for a subscription to Baseball Prospectus, even though I consider it a bit too analytics-driven for a numbskull like me who has no interest […]
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Be honest: How many of you out there had heard of Baseball United? I hadn’t until it popped up today in my Google search. According to the very well-produced BU website, “With a footprint of 2 billion people – 1 billion of whom are cricket fans – the Middle East and South Asia is the […]
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Used to be around this time of year you could look forward to the baseball annuals from Street & Smith, Athlon, Lindy’s, and a host of other magazine publishers. Of course, back in the day there were many others put out by the likes of The Sporting News, Major League Baseball, Bill Mazeroski, with Baseball […]
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♦ A sweet little piece on autograph collecting featuring a recap of the Who’s Who in Baseball publications from the always entertaining Uni-watch.com. ♦ From USA Today, a story about former MLB pitcher Jason Grimsley who writes about his life, his drug and alcohol rehabs, the psych wards, his performance-enhancing drug use, and his journey […]
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These are my favorite posts, taking a look at what new baseball books are on the horizon. A few notes: Traditional print rules the land here here. There may be a Kindle edition involved, but no Kindle-only titles are included herein. Second, Amazon does not want top make my life easier. I practically never include […]
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Books have been written about the use of baseball as an imperialist tool by the United States. We send people to foreign countries; they bring baseball with them, and pretty soon the residents of those foreign have embraced the game to a degree even more enthusiastic than back in the good ole U.S.A. Case in […]
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* Josh Wilker’s forthcoming book, Benchwarmer: An Anxious Dad’s Almanac of Fatherhood and Other Failures gets a thumbs up from Kirkus. Upshot: “This almanac of fatherhood (and other failures) is honest, relatable and humorous—an indispensable read for fathers (and sons) whose joy in life comes not from winning the big game but being alive to […]
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Just discovered that my podcast last week with Jon Paley, co-director of Ballplayer: Pelotero‘ was damaged. Fixed now and also available on iTunes. Sorry for the inconvenience. Carry on.
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This it the time of year when the baseball media offer their considered opinions on their favorite prospects. Sometimes they’re spot on, other times, not so much. So I thought, why not apply this to the upcoming “rookie crop” of baseball books? That is, titles that are making their debuts in 2014 — no reprints/reissues […]
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With Kevin Youkilis trading places with new Yankees acquisition Masahiro Tanaka of the Rakuten Golden Eagles in Japan, I was curious as to how he would adjust to the new culture. Sometimes it work, as in the case of Warren Cromartie; sometimes it doesn’t, as was the case for Jake Elliot (although he did, finally, […]
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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
