Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The oldest ex-major leaguer passed away yeasterday at the age of 100. Here’s the AP obituary, but I expect Richard Goldstein of The New York Times to come up with something soon. Veteran writer Ray Robinson wrote this tribute when Werber ht the century mark last June 20. And read this appreciation from Steve Politi […]
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The last timne I went on vacation, I returned to the news that Bobby Murcer had died. This time, it’s Dock Ellis. (Just goes to show that I can’t go away for a minute.) The former Pittsburgh Pirate, who admitted to tossing his 1970 no-hitter against the San Diego Padres under the influence of LSD, […]
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Sal Yvars, the catcher for the New York Giants who spilled the beans about sign stealing during the famous playoff game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1951, died Dec. 10 at the age of 84. Richard Goldstein does his usual excellent job in the NY Times‘ obituary. Yvars, the Giants’ back-up receiver from 1957-53 (with […]
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Score, who died Nov. 11 at the age of 75, was the poster boy for “what could have been.” A fireballing left-hander for the Cleveland Indians in the early 1950s, Score endured every pitcher’s nightmare: a head-high line drive back to the box. In this case, the shot came off the bat of the Yankees’ […]
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I was surprised to see this notice in the Publishers Weekly e-mail, until I saw the context: There probably has never been a better baseball book than Roger Kahn’s The Boys of Summer, which was a paean to the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s. With Roe’s death there are only a few left, Carl Erskine, […]
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Tresh was one of the last players to bridge the good Yankees to the bad Yankees in the 1960s.
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What team did he play for, you might ask. But Melendez was the genius behind the Peanuts cartoons. He passed away Sept. 2 at the age of 91.
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From The Canadian Press USA Today MLB.com Chicago Tribune
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Sherman “Jocko” Maxwell, a pioneering African-American broadcaster died recently at the age of 100. Maxwell, who was believed to have been the first black sportscaster, contributed to magazines such as Baseball Digest, for which he wrote about Jackie Robinson and the integration of baseball. He also wrote Thrills and Spills in Sports, a 1940 book […]
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from the Cleveland Plain Dealer on July 20: Dell Bethel… taught actors Robert DeNiro and Michael Moriarty how to play baseball like Major Leaguers for the movie Bang the Drum Slowly. Bethel, who died June 26 at age 78, also landed a credited role as a third-base coach for the 1973 film while he coached […]
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One of those heart-warming stories following World War II, Shepard was a flier who was shot down and captured in Germany. His injuries required the amputation of his right leg below the knee. Upon his return to the States, Shepard was signed by the Washington Senators and pitched in one game, against the Red Sox […]
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I heard Tony Kornheiser read this obituary from The Washington Post on the podcast of his eponymous radio program. Kornheiser has long been a favorite of mine, from the time he actually wrote for the paper. He had long since ceased writing on a regular basis, but retained a relationship with the Post, as well […]
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Two pieces by Tim Wiles of the National Baseball Hall of Fame follow. The first, written in 1999, reports on the late writer’s keynote address to the annual Cooperstown Symposium, a gathering of academicians to discuss eclectic topics within the greater baseball universe. The second article considers Asinof’s novel, Man on Spikes. Asinof: a Baseball […]
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From the Washington Post (includes a silly two-picture slide show; what was the point of that?). The Chicago Tribune mirrored the NY Times obit. Jeff Kallman contributed this piece on The MLB Source portion of MCN.com.
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From Bronxbanter.com. Look for more of these in the days to come. Man On Spikes was turned into an episode of the Goodyear Television Playhouse TV anthology in 1955, starring Ned Glass, Robert Morse, and Warren Stevens. Time magazine gave it this preview at the time: Most interesting of the teleplays was Man on Spikes, […]
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The author of the watershed book on the Black Sox Scandal died yesterday at the age of 88. Asinof published Eight Men Out in 1963; and was released as a John Sayles film in 1988, starring John Cusak, David Strathairn, Charlie Sheen, D.B. Sweeny, and Gordon Clapp, Christopher Lloyd, John Mahoney, Michael Werner, Studs Terkel, […]
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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
