Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Trying something a bit new in this age of coronavirus. Thanks — if that’s the appropriate word — to the current situation, we have a lot of “necessity is the mother of invention” going on. That’s how the Pandemic Baseball Book Club was born. The program is the brainchild of Jason Turbow, author of They […]
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I guess the just-retired future Hall of Famer wants to keep busy. Less than a week after appearing in his final game, Jeter announced the launch of The Players’ Tribune a new website promising to give fans (subscribers?) “a place where pro athletes can “connect directly with our fans, with no filter.” This was a […]
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So my internet service is provided by Comcast/xfinity. Whenever I sign in to check my email, the opening page contains dozens of headlines which are turning more and more into the on-line equivalent of supermarket tabloids. They tease with provocative come-ons in a desire to get the browser to click the link for stories that […]
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It’s Monday and that means I’ll be making my weekly appearance on the What’s On Second Internet radio program on Blogtalkradio.com. The show begins at 9 p.m. EST, and I’m usually on about 9:40. Tonight’s guest will be John Thorn, the newly-appointed official historian of Major League Baseball. Thorn, a prolific writer, has just released […]
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If you’re not otherwise busy watching Gossip Girls or some such nonsense, I will be guesting on What’s On Second: The Seamhead.com Radio Hour (not to be confused with The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour… or is it? Hmmm.) Anyway, the festivities begin at 9 p.m. and I’m slated to go on at 9:15 p.m. EST […]
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It seems that offering free PDFs as a way to garner attention for one’s website/blog/publication is rapidly gaining favor. POD (Print on demand) offers the author/publisher to produce only the amount of copies needed, rather than kill an bunch of trees for nothing. A few weeks ago, SABR published its Emerald Guide to Baseball as […]
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This week in baseball books, featuring the best-sellers according to Amazon.com on Friday, August 14. Title Rank General Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain, Appel 1 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Lewis 2 Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend, Tye 3 The Yankee Years, Torre and […]
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Greg Prince, who heads up the Faith and Fear in Flushing blog, recently came out with a book that collects all the love for the Mets he can muster. In this entry, and in honor of the Passover holiday, he uses the “Four Questions” approach to discuss five new titles, not all of which are […]
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One of the things I like about this time of year is that the media comes out with its lest: the top ten, the best, the worst, etc. Jayson Stark of ESPN.com provided this list of the wildy and wacky world of baseball in 2008, including: A batter hitting a homer but not scoring the […]
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Technically, this doesn’t belong here (although you can keep a laptop on a bookshelf), but it’s an important resource so, from The New York Times, this announcement about the reorganization of ESPN.com. The problem with several major news outlets, including the Times and Sports Illustrated, is that the designers try to cram too much info […]
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An Unofficial Journal of Baseball’s Best Fans, Volume #1 By Will Byington It takes a special person to be a Cubs fan. With such a rich history of failure and disappointment, some would call them masochists, but looking at the photos and reading the stories in Byington’s new book, they seem happy enough. (Of course, […]
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Wowio is actually an e-book website that recently started charging for its collection. But if you don’t mind staring at your computer screen, you can read the the 2008 edition of the excellent Hardball Times for free. IMHO, this publication is right on par with the Baseball Prospectus annuals. Registration may be required.
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A nice addition to the virtual/digital sports publishing world. Similar in format to the virtual edition of ESPN The Magazine. You can sign up for a daily e-newsletter, too. Today’s baseball stories include items on Jorge Posada’s shoulder injury, AL and NL roundups and box scores, and a Q&A with Rays’ pitcher Scott Kazmir
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Will Leitch, founder and editor of Deadspin.com, is stepping down to take a job as a contributing editor of New York magazine. You can read his abdication announcement here. I use that term with some consideration, since he writes of himself using the “Royal We.” It is with heavy heart — yet mirthful disposition! — […]
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Buzz Bissinger is no fan of blogs. So by extension, he might not have much empathy for will Leitch and Deadspin. Here’s a snippet of Bissinger vs. Leitch on an episode of Bob Costas’ HBO program: (The whole piece can be seen on the Deadspin site.) Surprisingly, Bissinger granted an interview with his adversary, as […]
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Having received Mike Shropshire’s latest book about the abysmal early years of the Texas Rangers, I am reminded how I’ve always wondered how the print media covers teams that don’t play in the drama capitals of New York, Boston, Chicago, or Los Angeles. What can you say about the Royals or the Pirates or Orioles […]
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TSN used to be called “the Bible of baseball.” As a youth used to spend my 50 cents of allowance for the tabloid paper which contained storied, capsule recaps and box scores, and tons of stats in a pre-Bill James era. There have been several major shifts over the years. For one thing, the decision […]
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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
Bookshelf review: Grantland
June 17, 2011 · 1 comment
I was super-psyched when I heard about this new website — under the aegis of ESPN — that would feature some of my favorite writers opining on all sorts of sports topics and issues (man does not live by baseball alone). Goodness knows there was enough pre-release hype. Sadly, from what I’ve seen so far, […]
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