Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Because they can go right next to a bookshelf. An advert for a company that produces what looks like cool metal “posters” popped up on my Facebook feed. With my birthday fast approaching, I thought I would treat myself. I was curious to see if they included two of my favorites: Hank Greenberg and Sandy […]
{ 0 comments }
I don’t know what made me think of it, but I wanted my Maypo. Those of you old enough will recall that Maypo was a breakfast cereal, an oatmeal mish-mash that had a hint of maple flavor. It was a treat in our household because we were fairly poor when I was a kid and […]
{ 0 comments }
Earlier this month I posted “Another reason why predictive baseball magazines can be useless.” But I had never see any outlet try to revise these things. Today, The Athletic posted “MLB season predictions 2.0: How did the first two months impact our picks?” Who could have known that the Mets would be so stinko? Many […]
{ 0 comments }
A down-and-dirty post in honor of the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, from June 2016. I’ve always gotten a chuckle when a non-professional cook comes out with a book on food. Are they really offering anything new besides their picture on the cover? Case in point: The sample available on Amazon offers just one recipe: Grand […]
{ 0 comments }
What is this? Joe DiMaggio Campanella Brooklyn’s got a winning team Mickey Mantle California baseball First one to get it right wins an autographed copy of 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die.
{ 0 comments }
Wasn’t expecting to have more to say about Vermont baseball following Tuesday’s post but… We discovered a library on the Smugglers Notch premises, the type where guests “borrow” books and leave behind those they have finished while vacationing, rather than schlep them back home. I had read […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Rather than pull something out of the Bookshelf archives, I thought for something a bit different this week. The good news is that I got to watch the Yankees beat the Giants, 7-0, in the season opener. Normally, I would not be able to watch a game with an 8 p.m. start because I have […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
As a partner to “Throwback Thursday”… In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I hauled out this article I wrote for Irish America magazine some 13 years ago on the influence that community had on the national pastime. Irish ballplayers have helped to shape baseball ever since the game took its first foundering steps on the playing fields […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Or not. For some, 13 is actually a lucky number. But for others… Baseball is notorious for have superstitions. Remember this scene from Bull Durham (WARNING: Explicit language) Here are just a few books that deal with baseball superstitions: The Incomplete Book of Baseball Superstitions, Rituals, and Oddities, by Mike Blake Field of Magic: Baseball’s […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
At Texas Women’s University, “Fiction class goes deep into baseball literature.” There is a literary quality to baseball. From the lyrical of W.P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe to the irreverence of Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, the chronicles of David Halberstam, the eccentricity of Bill Veeck’s Veeck As In Wreck and the satire of Philip Roth’s The […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
I love backstories, whether they’re superhero original tales or something like “Revealed: The TV Manufacturer Whose Set Design Was Used on 1955 Bowman Baseball Cards” from the Sports Collectors Daily website. Bonus points for citing one of my favorites, The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading, and Bubble Gum Book, first published by Brendan C. […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
As I mentioned in the previous entry, Topps traditionally reserved baseball cards ending in “00” for the cream-of-the-crop elite players (not sure about other sports). With one exception, there were at most only seven available “00” slots. Yearly output ranged from 210 in 1955 to a whopping 825 in 1993. It makes sense that the […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
My wife has been in a number of book groups over the past twenty or so years. Once a year, the husbands are invited to participate. In all that time, we’ve only discussed one book about sports (if you consider Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not About the Bike a sports book). So this story from the Washington […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Except replace “still” with “not” and “rock and roll” with “baseball.” 60 Minutes featured a segment on the Savannah Bananas in its April 13 episode. Jesse Cole, the man behind the (yellow) curtain, has written several books about the team and marketing, including Banana Ball: The Unbelievably True Story of the Savannah Bananas, which is […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Pete Peterson’s national public radio program, Reading Baseball, just celebrated its 400th episode! Mazel tov. Pittsburgh pitcher Paul Skenes is included in Esquire’s “Mavericks of Sports 2025” feature. Skenes is also featured in today’s New York Times Magazine piece, “How Analytics Marginalized Baseball’s Superstar Pitchers: Why has pro baseball made it so hard for today’s […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
What do Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabbathia, and Billy Wagner all have in common? Oh, yeah, sure, they were all just elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. But wait, there’s more. That’s right; they’ve all written memoirs. Ichiro’s book was published in 2004. There are other books about him, including The Meaning of Ichiro: […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
I am a great believer in the serial (Oxford) comma. It;’s pretty much in the stylebook for every outlet for which I’ve written. And you can find lots of arguments for and against its use. But I’ve never seen in discussed in respect to baseball books until now. Submitted for your entertainment and/or amusement, this […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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
