Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram ran this piece on Josh Hamilton’s new book, which is receiving great praise, especially locally. Hamilton, by the way, Hamilton won a Players Choice Award on Tuesday as the American League’s Most Outstanding Player. He batted .304 with 32 homers and an AL-best 130 RBIs. I’m almost glad his book came […]
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Kidliterate.com published this review of Alan Gratz’s latest. Gratz also wrote Samurai Shortstop, a young adult/historical fiction book on baseball at a Japanese school in the late 19th century. Visit Gratz’s Web site.
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From Texas Pages, which provides information about writers, books and events in the Lone Star state, the following announcement: * Forced Out, by Stephen Frey (Atria, $24.95). Follows a baseball scout, player and mafia hitman as their destinies converge.
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What’s the difference between A-Rod and the Bambino? The way they have been treated by the media. In Ruth’s day, what happened behind bedroom doors (usually) stayed behind bedroom doors. That is not longer the case. Photographers and reporters hang around, just waiting for the opportunity to take an embarrassing picture. But according to this […]
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General: Yankee for Life: My 40-year Journey in Pinstripes, by Bobby Murcer. The passing of the former ballplayer puts this one on top. Yankee Stadium: The Official Retrospective, by Santasiere and Vancil. The closing of the ballpark makes this subgenre hot. But why don’t they wait until the final season is over, which would complete […]
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On the June 21 edition of Only a Game, Bill Littlefield offered this interview with John Feinstein, author of Living on the Black. (Sorry, but you have to listen to the preceding stories before you get to the Feinstein segment.) Read an excerpt from Living on the Black. The Leonard Lopate Show of June 24 […]
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by Frank Nappi. St. Martin’s Press I don’t ordinarily read baseball fiction aimed at the young adult demographic. Most are simply rehashes of the same story: young athlete, usually a star, faces adversity in the form of another player on his own team or a health crises or another at-home situation; learns valuable lessons, yada-yada-yada; […]
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The Hall of Fame outfielder for the Chicago Cubs and Oakland Athletics, turns 75 today. Williams was part of the famous Cubs team — Santo, Banks, Hundley, Jenkins, Holztman, Hands, Kessinger, Beckert, etc. — that couldn’t stop the Mets juggernaut in 1969. he recently released his autobiography. The Amazon Report on Billy Williams: Billy Williams: […]
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As reviewed on Stltoday.com, a St. Louis-based web site. The End of Baseball is a Bill Veeck-inspired historical fiction, which is on my shelf for near-future reading. Upshot: Mainly, as somebody in baseball puts it, “The End of Baseball” sails straight down central. As somebody else in baseball used to say, it’s a winner.
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Catching up a bit: Bob Murcer’s autobiography as reviewed on MLB.com The Griddle on Baseballtoaster.com considers Peter Morris’ latest, But Didn’t We Have Fun? wickedlocal.com, a Massachusetts Web site, reports on an appearance by author Jim Collins at a Cape Cod high school. Collins is the author of The Last Best League: One Summer, One […]
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The headline — “Lulu.com Creator Hits One Out of the Park With Dugout Wisdom” — would seem to imply that Migala created Lulu.com, which is erroneous, according to Lulu’s Web site. In Dugout Wisdom: Life Lessons From Baseball, author Dan Migala finds the heart in baseball, collecting and sharing words of wisdom from 55 greats […]
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Time to play catch-up again. From Great Britain’s Guardian, this article about Billy Beane and the Moneyball phenomenon. Why on earth would it appear in a British paper? Because Beane is “Tottenham Hotspur fanatic, as well as a fan of the team’s coach, Sir Alex Ferguson. A list of recommended baseball novels from the Campaign […]
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I have given major props to the L.A. Daily News‘ Tom Hoffarth for his thoughtful month-long series of baseball book reviews. Today’s the last day, so here’s his “whole freakin’ list” which lists and links all 30 titles. He was also gracious enough — self-promotion alert — to mention The Bookshelf in his wrap-up. Thanks […]
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from the Web presence of the Arizona Daily Star
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Oh “great”; here we go again. Although the author doesn’t employ “greatest” or “best” in his title, The Last Great Pennant Race does have connotations that there haven’t been any since. I’m guessing thousands, if not millions, of fans would beg to differ.
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Two baseball related items in the May 2 issue of The Week: The Book List has mini-capsule reviews of four titles including But Didn’t We Have Fun?, The Greatest Game; We Would Have Played for Nothing; and The Code. In “The last word” section, “The truth about baseball’s roots” is excerpted from Kevin Baker’s “At […]
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Baseball’s Grand (and not-so-grand) Finales, by Bill Chuck and Jim Kaplan (Acta Sports, 2008). Interesting in concept, but falling short on execution, the authors no doubt wanted to convey the feelings of exhilaration (for the winners) and agony (for the losers). Chuck and Kaplan (no relation) lead off with a chapter on pennant races and, […]
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Time to play catch-up: From a rival site about baseball book reviews, this piece on Hammerin’ Hank, George Almighty and The Say Hey Kid (another of those books that uses words like “greatest” and “forever” in its title). An oldie, but good: this review of The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, by Douglass Wallop, […]
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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
