Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
For April 29 (yes, April 29, according to the website) Imperfect: An Improbable Life, by Jim Abbot and Tim Brown stands at #16. Driving Mr. Yogi: Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry, and Baseball’s Greatest Gift, by Harvey Araton is at #20. Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball, by R.A. […]
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♦ Tom Hoffarth’s latest two entries on his 30/30 feature: The Team That Forever Changed Baseball and America: The 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers, by The Society of American Baseball Research, edited by Lyle Spatz, Maurice Bouchard and Leonard Levin, and Conspiracy of Silence: Sportswriters and the Long Campaign to Desegregate Baseball, by Chris Lamb. Upshots: Dodgers […]
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In honor of opening week, The New York Times posted this piece in its Arts Beat blog in which several of their writers and editors pick their favorite baseball titles. Among them: George Vecsey, The Southpaw and The Boys of Summer Michiko Kakutani, Chief Book Critic, Underworld Tyler Kepner, Ball Four and Men at Work […]
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This list appeared on a SABR post and it seemed like a good resource, so I’m recreating it (sans links) here, FYI: Bloom, John, A House of Cards: Baseball Card Collecting and Popular Culture (Univ. of Minn. Press, 1997) Boyd, Brendan and Harris, Fred, The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book […]
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Tom Hoffarth’s third installment in his 30 books/30 days series: The Greatest Show on Dirt, a novel by James Bailey. The Rafu Shimpo, Los Angeles’ Japanese daily newspaper, published this review of Transpacific Field of Dreams: How Baseball Linked the United States and Japan in Peace and War, by Sayuri Guthrie-Shimizu. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch […]
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Actually, apologies to the office manager, who had to schlep these books to my desk. Four titles from the University of Nebraska Press arrived today (full disclosure: UNP will be publishing my 501 book next year). In order of interest to me (with all due respect to the authors and which probably means the order […]
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Richard Johnson, curator of The Sports Museum in Boston and author, co-author, or editor of several baseball titles including: The American Game; Baseball. Ethnicity, and The American Dream, Red Sox Century, DiMaggio, An Illustrated Life, and Ted Williams, A Portrait in Words and Pictures, posted this piece on Facebook today. I have taken the liberty […]
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James Baily published his list of top ten baseball books on Baseball America. His choices include, in order: The Art of Fielding: A Novel, by Chad Harbach (currently ranked #18 on Amazon) Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball’s Longest Game, by Dan Barry Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of […]
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In an effort to cull out the weighty tomes that threaten to cave in our attic floor, my wife is giving me a Kindle for Hanukka with the hope that any new book I acquire will be in that format. I have long been opposed to e-books for aesthetic reasons. I like the tactile “interaction,” […]
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The good news: More than half way to the goal of 501 books. The bad news: it takes me away from the blog. Oh well, hang around. It will be worth it in the end. In the meantime, here are a few items for your consideration: Out of Left Field, Rebecca Alpert’s history of Jewish […]
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While doing research for my project, I came across this list, published in 2002, of the 100 top sports books of all time as chosen by the editors of Sports Illustrated. Of those 100, “only” 32 were about baseball. The nerve. Anyway, here’s the SI piece, trimmed to just baseball titles, with commentary from the […]
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The first of what will probably be several lists/suggestions: Linda Holmes, over at Monkey See, the pop culture blog for NPR, offered a selection of five sports books for the summer, including Stan Musial: An American Life by George Vecsey. And, what the heck, there’s enough info to consider Scorecasting a baseball book, too. This […]
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Steve “Psycho” Lyons turns 51 today (so does Barry Lyons, who is no relation as far as I know). Lyons — a “colorful character” (or “flake.” depending on your point of view) batted .252 over nine season for the Red Sox, White Sox, Braves, and Expos. Perhaps his most famous moment on the field was […]
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Defining the National Pastime, edited by Paul Dickson. Dover, 2011. In a word, Baseball is… great fun. Okay, so that’s two words, so sue me. The small, square paperback contains the wisdom of the ages when it comes to distilling the history of the game into a few sentences. There are plenty of larger books […]
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The Yankee legend turns 86 today. You can’t have a baseball book about the Yankees post-war dynasty without Berra, who happens to be a nominal neighbor of mine in that we live in the same New Jersey town. One of his books is titled The Yogi Book: “I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said. “ […]
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Day 23: New York Mets: 50 Amazin’ Seasons — The Complete Illustrated History Day 24: The Runmakers: A New Way to Rate Baseball Players Day 25: Wizardry: Baseball’s All-Time Greatest Fielders Revealed Day 26: Pitchers of Beer: The Story of the Seattle Rainiers Day 27: Bullpen Diaries: Mariano Rivera, Bronx Dreams, Pinstripe Legends, and the […]
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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
Spring cleaning, er, reading
March 7, 2012 · 2 comments
When my wife gave me a kindle for the Hanukka, it was with the understanding that I would bring fewer books into the house. Yeah, that’s not working out too well right about now, as new baseball titles just keep coming. I have been asking for them in Kindle format whenever possible, but it’s not […]
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