Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
It’s quite appropriate that baseball’s winter meetings are held around the holidays. If your team’s front office guys are good, you can get a swell present of a 40-home run slugger or Cy Young-caliber pitcher. Or you can get a lump of coal. It’s way too early to report on anything major, so in the […]
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The Hall of Fame veterans Committee will announce any decision on Monday, Dec. 8. Players who are under consideration include: SINCE 1943 • Dick Allen • Gil Hodges • Jim Kaat • Tony Oliva • Al Oliver • Vada Pinson • Ron Santo • Luis Tiant • Joe Torre • Maury Wills PRE-1943 • Bill […]
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Spitball Magazine just announced the finalists for the 2008 CASEY Award, Almost a Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the 1980 Phillies, by William Kashatus (University of Pennsylvania Press) Neil Leifer: Ballet in the Dirt: The Golden Age of Baseball, by Neil Leifer (Taschen) (See here for samples.) Baseball’s Greatest Hit: The Story of “Take […]
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The Chicago Sun-Times recently offered a list of gift books, as comprised by some of its writers. Of the seven suggestions, Two baseball titles made the grade: Babe Ruth: Remembering the Bambino in Stories, Photos and Memorabilia, by Julia Ruth Stevens and Bill Gilbert; and Remembering Yankee Stadium: An Oral and Narrative History of “The […]
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Thirteen years in the making. In 1995, I delivered my first “scholarly paper.” It was at Hoftsra University’s centennial celebration of Babe Ruth’s birth and it was a hoot. I spent three days there, listening to all sorts of presentations, visiting exhibits and finally — nervously — making my own. My topic was “The Books […]
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BaseballReflections.com posted this review of J.C. Bradbury’s book. Upshot: While the writing is not inherently strong, Bradbury does a good job of simplifying complicated economics issues for those of us who don’t spend our lives studying these things. Overall it is a very interesting read for those who are interested in outside the box issues […]
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This one by Mark Cressnan in The A to Z History of Baseball. At the risk of being totally unfair, I wonder about such books, self-published and without much pomp and circumstance. For the brief press release to state “Cressman, who possesses a Master’s Degree in Sport Administration, is an authority on the subject matter […]
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The eulogies keep pouring in about this marvelous writer and raconteur. This one, from Maggie Hendricks of NBC Chicago, specifically speaks to Terkel as a baseball fan. This one from NPR.org isn’t baseball-centric, but he deserves the recognition.
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Humbly submitted via the pages of ForeWord Magazine, this non-fiction list of RK’s “essential” baseball reading. I’ll be working on a fiction version soon.
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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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MyrtleBeachOnline’s sports columnist Sean Horgan offered a list of 20 great sports books, including the following baseball titles, listed in his order: The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, (Bill James, 1986) This book changed the way many people looked at baseball, encompassing history, anecdotes and statistical analysis. The Great American Novel (Philip Roth, 1973) Roth […]
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Sorry, a little late on this one. Holiday, and all. *** General: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis Yankee Stadium, the Official Retrospective, by Al Santasiere Watching Baseball Smarter, by Zack Hample. The Natural, by Bernard Malamud The Mental Game of Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance, by H.A. Dorfman […]
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Baseball Films in the Capra Tradition by Wes D. Gehring, McFarland, 2004 Gehring, a professor of film at Ball State University and associate media editor for USA Today magazine, combines th best of both worlds as he examines several baseball features, comparing them with the works of Frank Capra. For example, these baseball films mirror […]
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A lot has been written over the last couple of days (in the New York area at least) about the firing of Mets manager Willie Randolph. It’s not so much that he was fired as much as how the deed was done. How terrible, the sports pundits cried, to do it in the middle of […]
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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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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
* Playing catch up, part 1
December 6, 2008
Been a bit remiss in recent weeks, so trying to catch up with a roundup of items: BaseballFarming.com offers a list of “Baseball Books to Love,” which includes fiction and non-fiction titles. Prior to 2008, baseball didn’t have to sully itself with official instant replay, but since it did, might as well bone up on […]
Tagged as: baseball books
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