Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The NFL Draft takes center stage. Don’t know about you, but I’m tired of other sports — most notably football — turning into a year-round, attention-hogging entity. Not to get too philosophical, but there’s something to be said about absence making the heart grow fonder. Without darkness, there’s no light. Without sour, you don’t appreciate […]
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The May issue of Playboy features the magazine’s annual baseball feature, by Tracy Ringolsby. Meanwhile, Maxim takes a less traditional approach in picking its favorite players, as contributed by Jeff Pearlman. Sorry, no links. This is, after all, a family blog.
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The Masters took center stage this week; congrats to Phil Mickelson. Tom Verducci gives Jason Heyward the treatment in “Legend Before His Time.” (Note to editors: Please, please, please, don’t put Heyward on the cover.) Joe Sheehan on how the Twins are coping without their All-Star closer And a very brief review of Tim Wendel’s […]
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Baseball’s opening games took a back seat to the Duke Blue Devils and the NCAAs. Baseball items were basically limited to a profile of pitcher Wandy Rodriguez and other possible break-out pitchers of 2010.
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Sorry, about the lateness. Life and everything, you know. The Baseball Preview issue. Yes! So, of course, you’re going to have the team profiles. Yada, yada, yada. One-page wonders that list the projected starting lineup, a statistical nugget, a “player to watch,” and a “modest proposal” on how to make the team better. The major […]
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Roger Angell has long contributed excellent essays to New Yorker magazine. Now he has company in Ben McGrath (the next generation?), who wrote this piece on spring training and the possible surprise stars f0r 2010 in the April 7 issue. Now you have a chance to ask your questions of these entertaining writers. From the […]
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Click here for a search of baseball-related items on Forbes. They don’t happen that often — and naturlaly, deal with the financial side of te game — but the writing is usually worth the wait. Recent articles include: Baseball’s Youth Wave: Smaller-market teams are increasingly locking up young talent in longer deals. That’s bad news […]
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For those looking for more info about the ZiPS system, here are a couple of links. The first goes to the BaseballThinkFactory, where it originated/ The second leads to “The Max Info” on ESPN.com, written by Dan Szymborski, EIC of BTF. Note on the latter: you maybe have to be a Insider (additional subscription) to […]
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Backlogged, as usual. Looking forward to the annual Baseball Issue, but in the meantime, it’s pretty much NCAA stuff. Issue of March 22: Joe Posnanski on Bud Selig’s bizarre realignment plan Ari Fleischer’s new role Jon Heyman on some of this spring’s hot rookies, including Strasburg and Heyward A Ben Reiter profile of the Angels’ […]
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Spitball magazine is running several reviews on its website, including: High Heat Rum Point Fifty-Nine in ’84 Roger Maris: Baseball;’s Reluctant Hero
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Ha! I knew that would get your attention. Get our mind out of the gutter and onto the green. Golf Magazine pairs up with baseball for its current issue. Among the specific topics: The Power of Angle: The Power Angle, equally valuable in golf and baseball, is the key to a powerful and efficient swing. […]
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Actually, I suppose this is last week’s news, but since there are several baseball items worth noting, here goes: An item about Sen. Jim Bunning, who displays the same bulldog tenacity on Capitol Hill as he did the pitching hill. A profile on Orioles catcher Mark Wieters by Tom Verducci and a sidebar on the […]
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Had to get a tire replaced this morning. While sitting in the waiting room, I picked up a recent copy of The Sporting News which carried feature about the questionnaires the publication would hand out to players each year in preparation for the defunct Baseball Register. This article included reproductions of the forms from Willie […]
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Lee Jenkins’ profile of the Mets’ David Wright is the only baseball piece in this issue, which concentrates on post-Olympics stories.
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The Olympics are over. So is football. Pro hockey and basketball are winding down and it’s a wee bit early for March Madness. So baseball’s back. Tim Marchman praises “the G.M.’s who made the savviest moves of the off-season” Tom Verducci on the early buzz in spring training camp Albert Chen on run prevention as […]
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We finally got rid of football. Now if we can just get past these pesky Olympics… Baseball items will be coming fast and furious in the weeks ahead. Joe Po’s sweet piece on Willie Mays, pursuant to Hirsh’s new book. Tom Verducci’s assessment of recent retirees Frank Thomas and Tom Glavine. The Twins as the […]
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In spring a (nerdy) young man’s heart turns to thoughts of the new batch of baseball annuals. As I’ve written in the past, these publications no longer carry the weight they did when I was a kid, growing up in the pre-Internet days. Street & Smith was basically the only game in town, and I […]
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This week’s best-selling baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Feb. 19. Title Rank General Baseball Prospectus 2010 1 Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend, by James S. Hirsch 2 Baseball America 2010 Prospect Handbook: The Comprehensive Guide to Rising Stars from the Definitive Source on Prospects 3 2010 Baseball Forecaster (Ron Shandler’s Baseball […]
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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
* ESPN The Magazine‘s Baseball Preview issue
March 27, 2010 · 1 comment
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Since the whole baseball card scenario has changed since I was a kid, I now look forward to the baseball preview issues from ESPN The Magazine and Sports Illustrated as harbingers of the impending season. ESPN arrived yesterday, and quite frankly, it’s a bit disappointing. In the […]
Tagged as: baseball preview, ESPN
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