Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The best way to play catch-up is via a “Bits and Pieces” entry so here goes: James Bailey offers this appreciation for W.P. Kinsella’s The Iowa Baseball Confederacy. Rob Neyer, Grant Brisbee, and Murray Chass on Mike Piazza and his new book, Long Shot. Don’t know where this excellent Simpsons/Moneyball mashup came from, but Brisbee […]
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Fulfilling your civic duty by serving on a jury certainly has its ups and downs. Suffice it to say I am on a case, the details of which I cannot reveal at this point, and will be shuttling back and forth to the courts for the foreseeable future. The “good news”: the schedule is such […]
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Value Over Replacement Grit offers a baseball-themed crossword puzzle. At the risk of appearing sexist, I must say this is the first time I’ve encountered a woman who collects baseball cards with such a passion as Cee Angi, who wrote this mournful “Requiem for the 00s: The Decline of Topps Baseball Cards,” in which she […]
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Shane Tourtellotte at The Hardball Times, offers a thought-provoking series about “alternate baseball” series in which he posits what might have been had Abner Graves received credit for “inventing” the national pastime; Willie Mays as manager of the (New Jersey) Yankees thanks to a change of fortunes for the Harlem Globetrotters; and how Lou Gehrig’s […]
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Because you can put this on your bookshelf, behind lock and key. because, really, would you play with it? The eBay item of the day: a hand-made baseball tabletop game with an opening bid of $1.2 million. But at least you get “free economy shipping.” Frankly someone who has that kind of money to spend […]
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I don’t believe this for a minute, but it’s kind of funny. “He plays on a softball league at the Vatican” ??? Get him on The Yankles! Hey, if Ghandi could play, why not the Pope?
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(Because this looks like a sticker, and you can put stickers on your bookcase, although I wouldn’t recommend it; they ruin the finish when you try to remove them.) The Internet Baseball Writers Association of America, of which I am a proud lifetime member, just released its new logo: Students of the game will recognize […]
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In 1991, I “auditioned” for a new softball team. I had been playing slow pitch/arc in town but had become a bit bored, so when some old friends from Brooklyn told me about their fast-pitch team in Freehold, I thought I’d give it a shot. In the first at bat of the first day of […]
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Jim Baker posted this amusing entry on SB Nation regarding “Baseball Books for Boys” that certainly weren’t around when I was a kid. Baker previously posted these items on ersatz baseball pulp fiction and comics.
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This could be a Twilight Zone episode. There’s till time to get a gen-u-ine Connie Mack Christmas card, along with other little Philadelphia A’s knick-knacks, via eBay.
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A few months ago Bob Costas and Jerry Seinfeld sat down to deconstruct the famous Abbot and Costello routine, Who”s on First. Jimmy Fallon recently took it a step further in this bit feature Seinfeld, Billy Crystal and a couple of other guys regular viewers of the show probably recognize. Of course this one, by […]
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Craig Robinson is one of my favorite Internet friends. One of his websites offers unusual graphical representations of ideas (infographics), such as how tall Alex Rodriguez’s salary would be in penny form (short answer, miles). Robinson published Flip Flop Fly Ball: An Infographic Baseball Adventure, a collection of his work last year, which I highly […]
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This goes back aways, but David Roth wrote about R.A. Dickey, mold-breaker for the concept of the cliched athlete, in the July 9 issue of New Yorker. More recently, Will Leitch offers these thoughts about the Mets in a “reasons to love New York” retrospective. Bruce Markusen at The Hardball Times posted this piece about […]
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We call them trucks; the British call them “lorries.” We call them garter belts; the British call them “suspenders.” We call them elevators; the British call them “lifts.” We call them baseball caps…
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♦ I’m including this piece just because I find it amusing. I hope the Brits don’t get all their baseball info like this. ♦ Who says fiction about the national pastime has to be confined to literature? Here’s a case of fictitious baseball merchandise. ♦ Dan Epstein, author of Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A […]
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For you movie buffs out there, from TheChive.com from a piece about The Shawshank Redemption: Andy and Red’s opening chat in the prison yard, in which Red is pitching a baseball, took 9 hours to shoot. Morgan Freeman pitched that baseball for the entire 9 hours without a single word of complaint. He showed up […]
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Or are there more and more athletes who are available for Facebook friendship and Twitter following? I just checked FB and saw A.J. Hinch, Joe Torre, and Dave Kingman under “People you may know…” The same applies for Twitter. Is anyone out there friends of these former ballplayers and are they the real deal? Seems […]
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(Kids, ask your parents/grandparents.) One of my pre-season amusements is to purchase baseball magazines and study their predictions, especially for who will get to the post-season. Somewhere on my other blog is an analysis of how they’ve done in seasons past. This year PunditTracker has done the work for me. The San Francisco Giants get […]
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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
