Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The acerbic comedian died today at the age of 90. A hardcore fan, he was frequently seen at those celebrity games as chronicled in Joe Siegman’s book, Bats, Balls, and Hollywood Stars: Hollywood’s Love Affair with Baseball, released in 2014. Rickles enjoyed talking about the game. Here he speaks with David Letterman in 1998. And […]
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About a year ago, I posted about the different covers for Bernard Malamud’s The Natural; they’re so pretty… Here’s something similar about the late Jimmy Breslin’s 1964 release, Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?: The Improbable Saga of the New York Met’s First Year, beginning with the original hardcover edition. I can’t vouch for the […]
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NOTE: I have been posting these things long enough now that a few have commented that the introductory section isn’t necessary anymore. But I’m leaving it in because, to paraphrase Joe DiMaggio when asked why he played so hard all the time, there may be people who’ve never read the best-seller entries before. So on […]
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The teacher and lecturer who published The Big Book of Jewish Baseball with his son Joachim, died in Raleigh, NC, last Saturday at the age of 71. This was one of those Jewish “reference books” I’m betting a lot of kids received as a bar mitzva or Hanukka present. Horvitz also wrote The Big Book […]
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Perhaps best known for her portrayal of the avaricious owner of the Cleveland Indians in Major League, Ms. Whitton died on Sunday at the age of 67. Here’s her obituary in the New York Times by Richard Sandomir, who has moved from from his previous post as the sports media columnist to the “dead beat.” […]
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Yesterday marked the 75th anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s death. I’m guessing that has something to do with the addition of Lou Gehrig: Pride of the Yankees by the legendary Paul Gallico to the Amazon baseball best-selling list (as a Kindle book). Naturally more recent books on Gehrig have enjoyed the ability of temporal distance as […]
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Forgive the nihilism, but such is the meaninglessness of life. I was about to line the bottom of the birdcage this morning and just happened to notice that one of the pages carried the obituary for “Tom Knight, 89; Knew It All About Brooklyn Baseball.” The 750-plus-word New York Times tribute was written by by […]
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One of the last great nicknames, Walt “No Neck” Williams died Jan. 23 at the age of 72. Williams debuted with the Houston Astros in 1964. He returned after another couple of years in the minors, spending six of his 10 big league seasons with the Chicago White Sox. He also played for the Cleveland […]
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One of the great ambassadors of the game, Monte Irvin passed away last night at the age of 96. Irvin was member of that generation of African-American ballplayers who suffered greatly as they integrated the game. Jackie Robinson was the first and most famous, and sometimes men like Irvin and Larry Doby don’t get the […]
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I was shocked and saddened to learn this morning that the long-time sportswriter and author passed away yesterday at the age of 80. Pepe was the epitome of the hard-working New York journalist, working for several papers, hosting his own radio show, and being one of those guys who seemed to know everyone. I had […]
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I frequently think about the statement, “X is going to be the first line in the obituary.” It’s usually offered when someone has a good life but will remembered for some unusual (often unfortunate) incident. Think about Steve Bartman or Bill Buckner, they should live and be well for many years. It’s a bit different […]
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Siebern died Friday at the age of 82. Another one of the “old” players on the cusp of my introduction to baseball. You know how you’re such a terrible judge of age when you’re a kid? This card comes from the 1968 set, when Siebern was 32 and in the last season of his Major […]
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I was surprised to see The New York Times given so much space for Chance’s obituary (by Bruce Weber). All due respect, Chance had a record of 128-115 in 11 major league seasons. Yes, he won 20 games twice, won the Cy Young Award in 1964 for the Los Angeles Angels, and was a two-time […]
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Usually I listen to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, hosted by my Jersey homeboy Peter Sagal, on Mondays on the way to work. But my schedule was a bit altered due to Jewish holidays, so I just got to this today. In the opening segment — “Who’s Bill This Time?” — we were treated to […]
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Yogi Berra, the Hall of Fame catcher for the New York Yankees during their glory years of the 1950s-early 60s, passed away Tuesday at the age of 90. Needless to say, Berra was one of a kind. One of the last great players of his generation as well as a “colorful character,” the media is […]
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The last man standing of the last Cubs’ World Series team. Merullo broke in with the Cubs — his only Major League team — in 1941 at the age of 24. In seven season, he compiled a lifetime batting average of .240 in 639 games with eight home runs and 152 RBI. He enjoyed his […]
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‘Nuff said. The New York Times obituary, by Margalit Fox. And an interview Dior did with MLB.com:
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Although known more for his classic, The Art of Writing Well, William Zinsser — who passed away May 12 at the age of 92 — also published Spring Training, a “memoir” of the Pittsburgh Pirates in spring training in 1988. Not surprisingly, it was well-received. Here are the obits from the Washington Post and The […]
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The veteran sportswriter for the Philadelphia Daily News for more than 50 years passed away on April 9 at the age of 86. A “celebration of life” service was held on April 12 at the Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park. I met Hochman in 2012 at a Jewish baseball retreat in Connecticut. He […]
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The 1953 unanimous MVP selection (the first time that had ever occurred) passed away Friday at the age of 91. To my mind, Al Rosen was the last of his generation, a Jewish ballplayer who grew up a time when anti-Semitism was still fairly prevalent, less so than Hank Greenberg but more so than Sandy […]
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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
