Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
One of my favorite non-baseball writers passed away this morning. For all of his quirkiness, Leonard was a solid baseball fan. He even had the privilege of throwing out a first pitch at a Detroit Tigers game in 1999 and was the subject of a chapter in Tom Stanton’s The Final Season: Fathers, Sons, and […]
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The uber-fan and founder of the nomadic Brooklyn Dodgers Hall of Fame died Tuesday at the age of 76. From the Richard Goldstein obit in The New York Times: When Jackie Robinson died in 1972, Mr. Adler campaigned to have his school, then known as Crown Heights Intermediate School 320, named for him. “The parents […]
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You know you’ve earned respect from your arch-rival city when they run your obituary in the papers. George Scott, the hard-hitting first-baseman for the “Impossible Dream” Boston Red Sox in 1967, died Sunday at the age of 69. Scott also played for the Milwaukee Brewers and led the AL in home runs and RBI (36/109) […]
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The legendary swimmer-turned-movie star died today at the age of 91. She was a surprisingly competent actress, compared with many other sports stars who tried their hand at the silver screen. Studios went out of their way to compose scenes in which she would display her aquatic prowess (and the fact that she looked good […]
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Lest we forget: 1991 – Cool Papa Bell, Negro League outfielder; Hall of Famer (b. 1903) Cool Papa Bell (Baseball Hall of Famers of the Negro Leagues), by Shaun McCormack, Rosen Publishing Group, 2002. On this date: 1919 – Christy Mathewson, back from the World War I, rejoins the New York Giants as pitching coach […]
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And so am I. Jury duty and still trying to get my day job done is taking up my blogging time, much to my (and I hope, to a degree) your dismay. But I wanted to pay tribute to one of my favorite sports photographers, Ozzie Sweet, who passed away Wednesday at the age of […]
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Shelby Whitfield, the former play-by-play announcer for the Washington Senators who wrote Kiss it goodbye (1973), a critical book about the team’s owner in the early 1970s and later managed an all-star cast of announcers for ABC Radio, died Feb. 5 at a rehabilitation facility in Jackson, NJ. He was 77. According to Whitfield’s obituary […]
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The inspiration for the character of Dottie Henson in A League of Their Own, died on Saturday at the age of 88. Davis published her memoir, Dirt in the Skirt, (which weighs in at over 500 pages) in 2009. There was also a website in her name. I just visited the spot and there’s some music […]
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The news cycle being what it is, this will probably be a moot point by the time you many of you read this, but the opening page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website is full of stories, videos, and photos of Stan Musial, who passed away yesterday at the age of 92. Here’s the New […]
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The author of one of the most controversial baseball biographies died yesterday at the age of 62. Cramer published Joe DiMaggio : The Hero’s Life in 2000. Many fans of the Yankee Clipper were outraged as the author painted the legend in an unusually unflattering light. DiMaggio was cheap, ungracious, a womanizer (sometimes bordering on […]
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Every Christmas you can count on a couple of celebrities to cast off this mortal coil. This time, sadly, it’s two of my favorite actors, Jack Klugman obit by Bruce Weber) and Charles Durning. One of Klugman’s signature roles was, of course, the sloppy sportswriter Oscar Madison in beloved TV series The Odd Couple, for […]
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Today’s newspapers are rife with news about the passing of Marvin Miller, who died yesterday at the age of 95. The pieces fall mostly into three general categories: straight-ahead obituaries, op-ed pieces discussing his importance to the sports world, and items on Miller’s continued snub for induction into baseball’s Hall of Fame, as exemplified in […]
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The man responsible — for better or worse — for the astronomical salaries baseball players receive these days, died this morning at the age of 95. He had been battling cancer for more than a year. Miller was one of the most powerful men in sports during his tenure as head of the players union. […]
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I remember him primarily as one of Gil Hodges’ coaches for the 1969 NY Mets. It’s sometimes hard to believe that these old men (Yost was just 41 when he joined the Mets) were young once and had pretty solid careers as players. Prior to becoming a coach, Yost enjoyed an 18-year career as a […]
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The Boston Red Sox legend died today at the age of 92. Pesky is a staple of any history on the team. He published Diary of a Red Sox Season in 2007 with Maureen Mullen and was the subject of Bil Nowlin’s Mr. Red Sox: The Johnny Pesky Story, in 2004. He was also one […]
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Probably only a few die-hard Dodger fans or baseball historians remember, but Ed Stevens was the man Jackie Robinson replaced when he joined Brooklyn in 1947. I think it’s kind of sad that that is how a person is remembered (Wally Pipp), but at least he is remembered As the New York Times‘ obituary by […]
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As if to prove the fragility of life, the news about Creamer comes just days after a belated literary birthday greetings. Creamer’s obit from The New York Times and by sportswriter/editor Jack McCallum.
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Davidson, a defensive end for the rough and tumble Oakland Raiders in the 1960s, passed away Monday at the age of 72. So what does the hulking football player have to do with baseball you ask? Well, after he left the game, he turned to acting (not unlike Merlin Olsen and Alex Karas). He appeared […]
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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
