Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The March 30 issue is, IMHO, the best of the regular baseball publications when it comes to their 2009 preview issue. Perhaps it’s catering to readers’ short attention spans, but the items are short with lots of photos to break up the page, making it kind of hard to separate into meaningful components. That doesn’t […]
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Another bi-weekly product, it also features a defensive theme in “Smell the Glove.” Each (very small) team capsule includes a pretty little color-coded chart pointing out the slick, so-so, and sieve spots at each position; a defensive +/- number indicates the team’s “projected total runs saved or lost relative to the ML average.” Huh? Why […]
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The BA March 23 issue serves as the preview for what is almost a trade publication. As always, the whole issue is devoted to baseball, but only part is devoted to a look ahead. Their “Fearless Forecast includes: ALDS: Red Sox over Twins, Yankees over Angels NLDS: Mets over Dodgers, Cubs over Phillies ALCS: Red […]
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Aside from the annual magazines, several weekly and bi-weekly publications put out a preview issue, which, one would think/hope, are more up-to-date. Suffice it to say there are team previews, a.k.a. “scouting reports (duh), so we won’t dwell on them. Suffice it to say each team profile includes a starting lineup, “Consider this: A Modest […]
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From SABR’s Jim Charlton: Google Book Search has the full-text, searchable archive of New York Magazine, dating back to the 1960s; Jet Magazine, dating back to the 1950s; Ebony Magazine, dating back to the 1950s; Prevention Magazine, dating back to 2006; Popular Science Magazine, dating back to the 1870s; and Baseball Digest, dating back to […]
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Some people don’t know when to shut up. A-Rod, for example. Doesn’t he have enough people mad at him without this self-serving piece in Details magazine? “Listen,” Rodriguez says. “I was thinking about one thing that I spoke about—it’s something that’s kind of trivial but will give me a hard time for no reason.” He […]
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The cover of SI shows Albert Pujols flexing his muscles and asking baseball fans to believe in him. Sports pundits on shows such as Pardon the Interruption make no bones about saying they;re having a difficult time believing anyone these days, that it’s become a matter of guilty until proven innocent. But with drugs evoling […]
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The April edition of Esquire celebrates opening day with three baseball-related items: A profile of Red Sox reliever John Papelbon, by Chris Jones “The Data,” a new column by Baseball Prospectus’ Nate Silver on “What Tim Geithner can learn from baseball.” Looks like you should have take your bar mitzva money and invested it in […]
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Ordinarily, I wouldn’t go back to a review of The Yankee Years; that so over. But I’ll make an exception for Roger Angell. The veteran sportswriter praises the work of both Torre and Verducci (“Verducci has range and ease; he’s a shortstop on the page.”) In the book, it’s a rush when you reach those […]
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Most of the annual previews are available as of this writing. I previously analyzed Beckett’s; here a more comprehensive look at the four I’ve purchased to date. Back in the day, the publisher printed only one cover. Now it’s easy to make one for every team or region. The examples here are for the New […]
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Okay, the Super Bowl is over and the swimsuit issue is out of the way with. Time to get serious. Spring has sprung, the grass has riz I wonder where the ball club is? SI marks the return of Spring Training with a profile of Phillies ace Cole Hamels. SI.com offers this spring training preview, […]
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Beckett offers a very straightforward product. Aside from the team-by-team analysis, the only additional articles deal with the top ten free agent signings (Mark Teixeira leads the list) and ten worst off-season moves, which includes bad trades and poor acquisitions (Nick Swisher’s departure from the White Sox heads this one). There’s also a small 2008 […]
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In a time when the print industry is succumbing to economic turmoils, you wonder if, in lieu of raises, Sports Illustrated isn’t offering to promote its writers’ books as a form of compensation. First it was Tom Verducci with The Yankee Years, excerpted on SI.com. He also used his on-line column to discuss the project. […]
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Judging by the email I’ve received about The Bookshelf, I would guess that many of you are of an age before the Internet made instant gratification an inalienable right. If you wanted “the latest” information on the upcoming baseball season, you got it from from the annual magazines that came out in the early spring, […]
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Or, “here’s another fine mess.” On a recent episode of PTI, Kornheiser and Wilbon were talking about the latest Barry Bonds situation (i.e., a judge saying evidence against him might be disallowed because of improper procedure) and wondering what that might mean for the slugger’s Hall of Fame chances. Of all of his contemporaries — […]
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(Man, I wish I had a named that rhymed cooly with something.) Can’t believe WINS radio led off some of its segments with the “controversy” of the new book. One person interviewed sagely opined that the whole media blitz was just a way to sell more copies, to which the reporter added something along 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
* Bits and pieces
April 5, 2009
The back page of The New York Times Book Review features a full page advertisement from Bauman Rare Books. I usually don’t pay attention because as much as I lvoe ’em, they’re out of my league, to borrow from a famous title. But a photo of Joe DiMaggio caught my eye and sure enough there […]
Tagged as: Darryl Strawberry, Entertainment weekly, New York Times, The Week
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