Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
This is getting ridiculous. Jeff McKnight was a member of my Mets in the early 1990s (with time out for a season with the Orioles). He has passed away at the age of 52. It’s getting to the point where I’m living a Pete Seeger song: I get up each morning and dust off my […]
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Alex Johnson, the 1970 American League batting champion, died Feb. 28 due to complications from cancer at the age of 72. Johnson played in the heyday of my baseball card collecting — the late 1960s to 70s. As such, he is, unfortunately, one of an increasing number of players from that period who are shuffling […]
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The pioneering ballplayer died Sunday at the purported age of 89 (or maybe it was 90; records are not clear about his exact DOB). Here’s the NY Times obituary by Richard Goldstein. And here’s another from the Chicago Tribune as well as a tribute piece. Books about Minoso include: Just Call Me Minnie: My Six […]
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A shande (Yiddish for “a shame”). Of course, everyone knows Nimoy, who grew up in a observant Jewish home in the Boston area, as Mr. Spock. But one of his earliest appearances came in an uncredited role in the 1951 baseball feature film. Rhubarb. Pay careful attention at the 2:08 mark. But perhaps […]
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One of the first women reports to make it into a mens’ locker room, Alison Gordon passed away yesterday at the age of 72. Gordon, who covered the Blue Jays for the Toronto Star, wrote about her experiences in her 19085 memoir, Foul ball!: Five Years in the American League, which is include in 501 Baseball […]
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What was that about “threes?” Baseball lost one of its colorful characters when Bridges passed away at the age of 87 on Jan. 27. Bridges, who played for seven teams during his 11-year career, had one of the classic “chaw faces” of all time.
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Boy, these things really do come in threes, don’t they? Charlie Williams is the answer to a trivia question: Who was traded for Willie Mays? The 67-year-old pitcher died on Tuesday. No obituary, so far, from the NY papers, but I think (hope) it’s only a matter of time. Williams was actually born in Flushing […]
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Bruce Weber gave Monbouquette, who died at the age of 78 on Jan. 25 , the NY Times obit treatment. Monbouquette was a sturdy pitcher during his 11-year career, winning 20 in 1963 for a Boston Red Sox team that was 76-85. He was a two-time All-Star and threw a no-hitter against the Chicago White […]
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Over due. The baseball community lost one of its real gentlemen when Ernie Banks passed away over the weekend. Banks struck me like a Stan Musial type: a certified Hall of Famer who spent his entire career with one team that didn’t always play that well. He did well enough, though: two consecutive MVP awards […]
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The inventor of instant replay died Jan. 18 at the age of 81. In a way, I blame him for ruining sports and perhaps culture in general. Because IR is so pervasive, there is no “dead time,” pardon the expression, any more. If you watch a baseball, you will invariably see at least two replays […]
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Two gentlemen with some interesting attachments to baseball. Hermann, one of my favorite actors, passed away Wednesday at the age of 71. Frankly, I thought he was older. He played Lou Gehrig to Blythe Danner in the 1978 TV movie, A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story. I haven’t seen this one in […]
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The baseball card scion died yesterday at the age of 91. If you were a red-blooded American boy, you probably collected some form of “sports cards” as a kid. Most likely, they were the offspring of Berger, who created Topps back in the early 1950s. Although trading cards have been around for more than 100 […]
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Sad that more and more of the ballplayers I grew up with, and whose cards I collected, are passing away. The latest, Ray Sadecki, died Monday at the age of 73. Sadecki was a reliable lefty with a lifetime record of 135-131 and a 3.78 ERA for six teams in his 18-year career. He made making […]
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The pepperpot player and manager died today at the age of 92. I’m guessing this was expected, considering how quickly his obituary appeared on Robinson Funeral Home site. Dark had a 14-year career in the Majors, beginning with the Boston Braves in 1946. After a two-year stint in the military, he returned to the Braves, […]
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The former Diamondback, Yankee, and As pitcher died last Friday as the result of fall in a climbing accident. The exact circumstances surrounding his demise remain unclear after an autopsy.
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The movie icon passed away yesterday at 89. There’s not much of a baseball connection here, although I did find this: Would love to know the backstory here: what were the circumstances in which she came to sign a baseball? Anyway, as of this posting, the ball is selling on Amazon for $1,299. Of course, […]
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Robin Williams died Monday, in an apparent case of suicide. The outpouring of grief and condolences would probably still be going on if not for the short attention span of an entertainment-gobbling public that has diverted their thoughts to yesterday’s passing of movie icon Lauren Bacall. To be honest, I found Williams a kind of […]
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Have to rearrange the schedule a bit between last holiday weekend and next weekend’s vacation to California. So… Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, […]
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is available on Amazon.com,
In my most recent "day job," I was the sports and features editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper, where I hosted another blog. Busy, busy, busy.
I did a profile piece on the award-winning cartoonist Arnold Roth and he was nice enough to "immortalize" me.
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
