Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Since I posted the first of these on a Thursday, which is known on social media as a time of reflection, I thought to make it a regular thing under this rubric. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get. (Actually, I never understood […]
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We’re getting to the time of year when spring training is about a month away and publishers are warming up as well. The bulk of baseball titles won’t be released until after opening day, but the handful of glossy magazines, which seem to be dwindling year by year, will be on newsstands shortly. Last week […]
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At least you won’t have the ridiculous dramatic pauses with camera zoom-ins and throbbing music as the audience awaits the name of the winner. (DWTS, I’m looking at you.) The editors of Spitball Magazine announced the nine finalists for the coveted CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year. The titles include: The Betrayal: […]
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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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I have mixed feelings about the outcome of the World Series. Maybe it’s a product of getting older, but I found myself not caring who won the extra inning affairs; I just wanted them to be over so I could go to sleep. Naturally, I would have preferred the Mets to beat the KC Royals, […]
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Whenever I learn of a situation where another library closes or a cache of baseball material is thrown away due to lack of space, money, or interest, I refer to this scene from the 1960 film version of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. That’s how I felt after reading Jeff Pearlman’s piece in The Guardian, […]
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Since I posted the first of these on a Thursday, which is known on social media as a time of reflection, I thought to make it a regular thing under this rubric. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get. (Actually, I never understood […]
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Publishers occasionally offer excerpts of the books to major newspapers an/or magazines to give potential consumers a free sample of their product.In many cases, the selections are the literary equivalent of movie trailers, picking the most interesting plot points. Often a local publication will give the treatment to a person associated with the market reach. […]
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I was listening to a Leonard Lopate interview with Greg Proops, a comic featured on the popular TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway, host of The Smartest Man in the World podcast, and, most recently, author of The Smartest Book in the World: A Lexicon of Literacy, A Rancorous Reportage, A Concise Curriculum of […]
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“The Curious Case of Sidd Finch” — ostensibly a feature article by George Plimpton — was the cover story for the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated. Of course, we all know now (spoiler alert) it was an elaborate hoax. Over the year’s, the myth has be debunked several times, including in the pages […]
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Been waiting to get the Sports Illustrated Baseball Preview Issue before posting this. Today’s the day so… There was an interesting conversation in the Facebook baseball book group. One gent wanted a recommendation for a good book about baseball stats. A book! Didn’t want a website! Old school. That got us thinking: the beauty of […]
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Forbes Magazine looks at baseball from a mostly financial point of view. Although I haven’t seen a stand-alone print edition for many years, they bstill do an above-average job of covering the game for a non-sports publication. Among the preview/review articles recently posted: MLB Worth $36B As Team Values Hit Record $1.2B Average The best […]
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In addition to the thousands upon thousands of baseball cards, Bob had a handful of baseball publications, most of them pertaining to fantasy baseball with a few Bill James Abstracts thrown in. This caught my I so I asked for it. More than any other issues, I think I enjoyed the March edition of Baseball […]
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And, no, that’s not a typo, because I consider the “new” part to be the important concept. Visited my local Barnes and Noble, ostensibly to pick up the new issue of Rolling Stone for their Saturday Night Live feature. While there, I came across this: Ordinarily, I don’t bother with stuff like this, but it […]
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Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine announced the winner of the 2014 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year is Kostya Kennedy for Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. The showing turned in by Rose was especially impressive given the outstanding field of finalists, which was extended by two books over the normal total of […]
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By Douglas B. Lyons. The Lyons Press. 216 Pages. $24.95 To be fair, how do you write a book about a book that’s essentially about tables of numbers? That’s the challenge Lyons picks up in 100 Years of Who’s Who in Baseball. While it’s fun to look at each of the covers, dating back to […]
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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
Throwback Thursday (aka, links dump), Dec. 17, 2015
December 17, 2015
Since I posted the first of these on a Thursday, which is known on social media as a time of reflection, I thought to make it a regular thing under this rubric. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get. (Actually, I never understood […]
Tagged as: baseball stadiums, Bill Veeck, cricket, Dock Ellis, New York Mets, New York Yankees
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