Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Nuckolball posted a review of Robert Creamer’s classic bio, Babe: The Legend Comes to Life. These are kind of like mini-reviews, so I’m including Baseball Nation’s piece on “Your favorite baseball books,” which includes, among others, Philip Roth’s The Great American Novel, The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball […]
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Just because it’s my birthday… Born this date: Lou Brissie (1924), subject of Ira Berkow’s engaging The Corporal Was a Pitcher: The Courage of Lou Brissie. Mike Coolbaugh (1972), subject of S.L. Price’s touching Heart of the Game: Life, Death, and Mercy in Minor League America. Also on this date: 1977 – The Dodgers retire […]
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Murray Chass weighs in on Terry Francona’s new memoir The Red Sox Years (written by Dan Shaughnessy). Russ Smith contributed this review of the same book on Baseball Musings. Speaking about managerial memoirs that raise an eyebrow, Mike Reuther, author the baseball novels Return to Dead City and Nothing Down, posts the occasional book review. […]
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Former manager Terry Francona will release his new memoir Francona: The Red Sox Years next week. Book publicity seems to be like movie trailers. The excerpts include the most exciting bits, which maybe just just a tiny fraction of the overall project. An excerpt of the book will appear in this week’s Sports Illustrated. The […]
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A review in The New York Times practically guarantees increased sales, so kudos to co-editors Tracy and Foer and all the contributors to this fine collection. Readers of the NJ Jewish News know I also do a weekly Torah haiku. Therefore I have to support my fellow poets. Here’s a haiku look at the players […]
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♦ The Washington Post published this piece on Tony La Russa’s memoir, One Last Strike: Fifty Years in Baseball, Ten and a Half Games Back, and One Final Championship Season. ♦ Better late than never: It seems the Seattle Post-Intelligencer finally got around to posting a review of Zack Hample’s 2007 publication, Watching Baseball Smarter: […]
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Recent baseball items from non-sports publications include: “Why Baseball Managers Don’t Make The (Relative) Big Bucks,” from Time. April may be the cruelest month, but it was also a weird one, according to The Atlantic website.
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The Sporting News-SABR Baseball Research Award, which recognizes outstanding baseball research in areas other than history and biography, has been awarded for the following books published in 2010: Satch, Dizzy, and Rapid Robert: The Wild Saga of Interracial Baseball Before Jackie Robinson, by Timothy M. Gay (Simon & Schuster) Evaluating Baseball’s Managers: A History and […]
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Metro, one of the all-time baseball lifers, passed away March 18 at the age of 91. Metro was a “wartime Player”; his playing career lasted from just 1943-45 during which he compiled a .193 batting average in 400 at bats. He also spent parts of two seasons as a manager (Cubs in 1962, Royals in […]
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Intro: As previously stated, the recent election of Robert Alomar and Bert Blyleven got me to thinking: how many Hall of Famers have had books written about them or penned their own stories. Here are the results. Again, this is not an all-inclusive list; almost all juvenile titles have been omitted. * * * “M” […]
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Intro: As previously stated, the recent election of Robert Alomar and Bert Blyleven got me to thinking: how many Hall of Famers have had books written about them or penned their own stories. Here are the results. Again, this is not an all-inclusive list; almost all juvenile titles have been omitted. Nap Lajoie (Inducted 1937) […]
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“M” is truly an amazing initial for Hall of Famers, isn’t it? Mays, Mantle, Musial, Marichal, , McCovey, Mathewson, no to mention managers such as McCarthy, Mack and McGraw Connie Mack (Manager; inducted 1937) My 66 Years in the Big Leagues, by Mack (1950) Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball, Macht (2007) The […]
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Intro: As previously stated, the recent election of Robert Alomar and Bert Blyleven got me to thinking: how many Hall of Famers have had books written about them or penned their own stories. Here are the results. Again, this is not an all-inclusive list; almost all juvenile titles have been omitted. Chick Hafey (Inducted 1971) […]
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Bobby Valentine — How has this guy not written a book yet? Between his time as manager for the Texas Rangers and New York Mets after a promising but ultimately injury-aborted playing career, plus his time in Japan, you’d think someone would have published one. There was a cool documentary — The Zen of Bobby […]
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By the way, it’s still winter so why aren’t we hearing snow-themed songs anymore? “Winter Wonderland” and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” among others, are not “holiday” songs, per se, so they’d still be valid. Just sayin’. Thought I saw my first “annual” at the bookstore last week, but it was a fantasy publication, so it […]
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to Ozzie Guillen, who turns 47 today. I know. I found it surprising that there are two books by/about him: The Wit And Wisdom of Ozzie Guillen and A Passion for the Game: Ozzie Guillen’s Insights, Outbursts, Kudos, and Comebacks.
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Walter Alston was born this date in 1911. He struck out in his only at bat: Sept. 27, 1936 as member of the St. Louis Cardinals against the Chicago Cubs. But he more than made up for that as a Hall of Fame manager for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers. Alston was inducted into the Hall […]
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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
