Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Actually, with the way it works, the Dec. 20 issue was last week (Tim Linceum graces the Dec. 27 year-end issue)), but there’s a goodly amount of baseball items in “The Year in Sports Media” issue that I didn’t want it to go by unremarked upon. The robots are taking over! Steve Rushin writes about […]
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The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com, as of Friday, Dec. 17 at 1 p.m. Title Rank General The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood, by Jane Leavy 1 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 2 Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back, by Josh […]
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TIME magazine published its top 10 list of everything this year, including sports. Baseball is at the top of the top: Baseball’s Imperfect Game (no further explanation needed) LeBron’s Bad Decision (no further explanation needed) A College Basketball Cinderella Comes Oh So Close (Butler vs. Duke) Football Uses Its Head (concussions) Ghana’s World Cup Giveaway […]
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The publishers of American History magazine just came out with 100 Greatest Sports Movies (and you know how I feel about the use of “Greatest” and “Best” in the title). Extracting just the baseball films, we have, in order: The Pride of the Yankees (#4 overall) Bull Durham (#6) Major League (#12) A League of […]
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Sports Illustrated‘s Tom Verducci considers one of the questions I’ve been wondering about for a long time: Why do teams keep hiring the same old managers rather than give someone new a chance? I’ve often thought of baseball in terms of television shows: you keep getting the same actors in different roles though similar roles. […]
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Go, Giants! They get the cover story treatment from Tom Verducci (Giant Moment). But that’s it for awhile, I fear.
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(with a side of shameless self-promotion. A “simcha” is a joyous occasion.) From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: Duo celebrating bar mitzva of counting Jewish athletes Edmon J. Rodman OCT. 28 — Down in Texas, the Rangers have an All-Star second baseman who has added flavor and flair to the 2010 season, helping propel his team […]
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It’s World Series time, but the cover story is about violent football hits. No quarrel there. Tom Verducci: Can You Say Cliff Hanger? Joe Sheehan: A November to Remember
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A series of recent baseball articles from Forbes: Baseball’s Best Teams For The Buck and Baseball’s Best Playoff Players for the Buck The Plight of the Umpire and the Inevitability of Instant Replay Who Profits from MLB’s Postseason? Baseball’s Most and Least Efficient Teams for the 2010 Season From the last story: The average payroll […]
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Jonathan Mahler, author of Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City, wrote this profile of Texas Rangers president and Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan in this Oct. 3 Sunday Times Magazine. I like Ryan. He’s old school. None of the pitch-count BS. […]
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Sadly, the only baseball feature in the NHL Preview Issue is The Last Stand of Billy the Kid, a profile of Braves’ closer Billy Wagner by Michael Bamberger. There’s also a Joe Sheehan item about why Felix Hernandez deserves the AL Cy Young Award. Get used to it.
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SI‘s Joe Posnanski picks his 32 favorite covers in the 50+ history of the magazine here. They’re not all baseball, but as Spencer Tracy said in Pat and Mike, “what’s there is cherce.”
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The cover of this week’s issue, which features Minnesota Twins’ power-hitter Jim Thome, struck me as eerily reminiscent of a long-ago photo: Well, maybe not so much, but pretty close. Anyway, Thome gets the main feature, written by Joe Posnanski. JoPos also writes about Derek Jeter’s upcoming free agency, but surprisingly, there’s no mention of […]
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Of course, football dominates this week, so the lone baseball item in Sports Illustrated is The Amazing Race, by L. Jon Wertheim: “How Ty Cobb, Nap Lajoie, a grudge-holding manager, a clumsy bribe, shoddy record-keeping and a very cool car made the batting title chase a national obsession 100 years ago.”
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The annual List Issue features some interesting baseball items including a feature on September call-ups, by Jeff Bradley. But the fun part is the lists which feature Most postseasons without winning a World Series (led by Kenny Lofton’s 11) The most common surnames by decade (Johnson, 5, followed by Smith, 4) Most games played all […]
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Baseball items include The Embarrassment of Riches, about the McCourt divorce battle by Lee Jenkins, and Is It Next Year Yet?, an update on Billy Beane by Ben Reiter.
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The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Aug. 27. Title Rank General Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 1 The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran, by Dirk Hayhurst 2 The Game from Where I Stand: A Ballplayer’s Inside View, by Doug Glanville […]
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Cover boy Joey Votto of the Reds merits a major profile by L. Jon Wertheim, while Tom Verducci ponders the magic (and surprising) season to date. Other baseball items include Bruce Chen’s piece on September call-ups; Lee Jenkins on Miguel Tejeda; and Ben Reiter on the Twins.
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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
