Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
I guess as the season goes on and the team in question is not doing particularly well, sportswriters and broadcasters have to look for ways to appear fresh. Is this the best you can do? Follow some anonymous reliever (with all dues respects) as he makes the courageous journey to the ball park on — […]
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Apparently so. Seems to take some of the spontaneity out of it, no? Wonder what Zack Hample thinks of this. He’s made a career of collecting — and writing about — the fine art of nailing these treasures.
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I would probably not be reading this 2003 release anyway, so the cover wouldn’t be a make-or-break issue. But with all due respect to the publisher, designer, and author, this is a strange deal. Composition: Is this a photograph or an illustration? It certainly looks “layered,” like the body is superimposed on the background, at […]
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Got it. Got it. Need it. But really, it’s not like opening a pack of baseball cards; you can’t keep Pop-Tarts that long after tearing the foil. Now Twinkies in their clear plastic wrap… Twinkies last for-ev-er. Put logos on those bad boys.
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Even if they might not have a logo on them. In cases where new inductees have played for multiple teams, it’s become something of an issue as to which cap they want on their plaque. There have been rumors that some teams will pay for the privilege of having their logo on display in Cooperstown […]
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Sorry, but there’s really no way to do this respectfully. Every time I try to come up with something, it just leads to puns, innuendo, and euphemism, so I’ll just go with it. In her recent memoir, Ted Williams, My Father, Claudia Williams has nothing good to say about Alcor Life Extension, while saying almost […]
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The Emory Sports Marketing Analytics program (their motto: “Bringing Analytics to Sports Marketing.” Well, duh.) recently published the first of a multi-part study of how fans perceive their teams, sort of an :If you sell it, will they buy” exercise. Who are the best fan bases in Major League Baseball? A quick Google search of […]
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Here’s something you don’t see every day. I’m guessing you could count on one hand the number of times Women’s Wear Daily has run feature pieces on baseball (items referring to baseball caps as accessories do not count). But here’s a major profile on the venerated writer Roger Angell. Didn’t realize he was a fashion […]
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And it’s even literary, technically.
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No offense to Woodstock. To honor Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, MLB has commissioned a series of statuettes depicting several Peanuts characters in baseball motif. The characters, which sell for $24.99, include good ol’ Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Schroeder, Pig Pen, Franklin, and Belle. The 2014 All-Star game will be hosted by […]
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All politics aside, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the historical event of a sitting president visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame. In his remarks, Barack Obama said “So I love baseball; America loves baseball. It continues to be our national pastime. And for any baseball fan out there, you’ve got to […]
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My daughter, Rachel, a photography major at NYU’s Tisch School, has been taking commencement pictures for the university’s newspaper since she was a freshman. She particularly likes doing the all-school program held at Yankee Stadium. But I don’t think any of the previous ceremonies thrilled her more than yesterday when future Hall of Famer Mariano […]
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Call me old-fashioned, call me a baseball dinosaur, call me irresponsible (kids, ask your parents), but I think this is just wrong Of all the teams, you expect the Yankees, who boast about their proud tradition and heritage as the “uber-franchise,” to stay the sartorial course. And several fans apparently agree with me. My complaint […]
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In my copious spare time, I like to unwind by playing the ukulele. I’m always looking for on-line sources of music, preferring the tunes from the early 1900s and jazz classics. I’m also a Tom Lehrer fan. So it was with a degree of amusement that I found this piece on one of my go-to […]
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There’s something inherently unfair about lumping together post-season records. Prior to 1969, there were just two teams still active after the regular 162 slate of games. Then there were an additional four. An additional round was added in 1995, and, in 2012, an additional game for the Wild Card play-in. So the if all the […]
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In honor of the day, here’s a terribly brief and incomplete list of titles by and about moms and baseball: Minor League Mom: A Mother’s Journey Through the Red Sox Farm Teams, by Pamela Carey Watching the Game, by Judy Lynn Johnson Diamond Moms: A Mother’s Guide to Raising a Baseball Player, by Candace Conradi […]
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Because you can keep your tablet and/or smartphone on a bookshelf. It’s not enough that he’s got several best-selling books out, now he’s expanding into the realm of apps? Dirk Hayhurst, who has more titles in print than years played in the majors (four to two), just released Bush League, described as “essentially a baseball […]
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Is he destined to be a pop culture touchstone? From this week’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me from host Peter Sagal: In just a minute, Carl gets ejected when umpires find rhyme tar on his neck. It’s the Listener Limerick Challenge.
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On this date in 1981: Seattle Mariners manager Maury Wills is suspended for two games as punishment for ordering the grounds crew to enlarge the batter’s boxes at the Kingdome. Wills decided to tamper with the chalk lines after the Oakland Athletics complained that Seattle’s Tom Paciorek repeatedly stepped out of the batter’s box while hitting. […]
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is available on Amazon.com,
In my most recent "day job," I was the sports and features editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper, where I hosted another blog. Busy, busy, busy.
I did a profile piece on the award-winning cartoonist Arnold Roth and he was nice enough to "immortalize" me.
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
“Jane, you ignorant slut.”
May 19, 2014
If you can remember the old Saturday Night Live skit — a take-off on 60 Minutes‘ “Point/Counterpoint” segment between conservative James J. Kilptarick and Shana Shana Alexander representing the liberal POV — you might be old enough to get where Boston Globe sports columnist Bob Ryan is coming from when he asks “Do baseball fans […]
Tagged as: baseball statistics, Bob Ryan, FranGraphics, sabermetrics, Saturday Night Live
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