Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
An American Odyssey, by Vernona Gomez and Lawrence Goldstone. Ballantine Books, 2012. Note: My review of this bio of an overlooked superstar appears on Bookreporter.com and is reproduced here for your convenience. Vernon “Lefty” Gomez, one of the greatest pitchers in New York Yankees history, came on the scene at roughly the same time as […]
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A periodic attempt to catch up on recent items and links. ♦ I love this entry by SB Nation’s Grant Brisbee on the 17-inning game between the Red Sox and Orioles on May 6 because it’s so damn literary, comparing the sportswriter’s hyperbole to the epic storyteller. ♦ And this one brief from The Hardball […]
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♦ I don’t usually look at e-books if they haven’t been published on paper as well, but David H. Martinez (The Book of Baseball Literacy: 3rd Edition: Nearly 700 People, Places, Events, Teams, Stats, and Stories – Everything You Need to Know in One Massive Book) has enough of a track record for me to […]
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♦ Recently “discovered” At Home Plate, a nice little baseball site that posts the occasional review. Recent titles include Long Taters: A Baseball Biography of George “Boomer” Scott The Greatest Minor League: A History of the Pacific Coast league, 1903-1957 Hit By Pitch: Ray Chapman, Carl Mays, and the Fatal Fastball Wherever I Wind Up: […]
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♦ Bill Jordan posted this review of Paul Dickson’s Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick, on Baseball Reflections. Upshot: “Anyone who considers themselves to be a fan of baseball history should pick this work up. Whether you were familiar with Veeck or not before reading the book, you stand to learn a lot about this interesting […]
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♦ The Knoxville News published this review of native son R.A. Dickley’s Wherever I Wind Up. Upshot: “t is rare to find a baseball book by an insider that dishes no dirt. It is even rarer to find a professional athlete willing to acknowledge his own mistakes. In “Wherever I Wind Up,” R.A. Dickey reveals […]
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♦ Tom Hoffarth’s latest: Summer of ’68: The Season that Changed Baseball — And America — Forever, by Tim Wendel. Upshot: “Halberstam-esque.” High praise, indeed. ♦ WBEZ, the NPR presence in Chicago, posted this mini-review of 100 Things Cubs Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. ♦ Similarly, Bronx Baseball Daily posted this review […]
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♦ Tom Hoffarth’s latest two entries on his 30/30 feature: The Team That Forever Changed Baseball and America: The 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers, by The Society of American Baseball Research, edited by Lyle Spatz, Maurice Bouchard and Leonard Levin, and Conspiracy of Silence: Sportswriters and the Long Campaign to Desegregate Baseball, by Chris Lamb. Upshots: Dodgers […]
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♦ Bill Jordan at Baseball Reflections on Tim Wendel’s Summer of 68. ♦ Tom Hoffarth kicked off his annual “30 book in 30 days” feature yesterday with Baseball Prospectus 2012. Today’s book is Trading Manny: How a Father & Son Learned to Love Baseball Again, by Jim Gullo. (Here’s another review from The Oregonian.) ♦ Sticking […]
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Several new titles arrived over the past week including: Before the Curse: The Chicago Cubs’ Glory Years, 1870-1945, by Randy Roberts and Carson Cunningham A People’s History of Baseball, by Mitchell Nathanson Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick, by Paul Dickson (Of The Dickson Baseball Dictionary fame) The Big Show: Charles M. Conlon’s Golden Age Baseball […]
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Eephus League, the brainchild of Bethany Heck, is an eclectic and imaginative on-line magazine. Next year it will make the leap to a print edition. You can see a sample online here. Judging just by the preview, it looks great. Well-produced, graphically-sharp, and fun! I haven’t seen anything like it since the short-lived 108 a […]
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Tom Seaver and His Times, by Steven Travers. Taylor Trade, 2011. I have very mixed feelings about this latest effort by Travers (A Tale of Three Cities: The 1962 Baseball Season in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco; The 1969 Miracle Mets: The Improbable Story of the World’s Greatest Underdog Team; and Dodgers Past […]
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Sometimes I wonder, with all the new books coming out every year, why anyone would want to read something they’ve already read before. So many books, so little time. But while working on the 501 Book project I came across several titles in my library that I had never read, which no doubt led 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
Spring cleaning, er, reading
March 7, 2012 · 2 comments
When my wife gave me a kindle for the Hanukka, it was with the understanding that I would bring fewer books into the house. Yeah, that’s not working out too well right about now, as new baseball titles just keep coming. I have been asking for them in Kindle format whenever possible, but it’s not […]
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