Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
(Maybe that should be “Don’t Taft me, bro.”) Our favorite NPR program featured piece of baseball this trivia in its “Not My Job” segment with guest Duke Fatir of The Four Tops. The three questions all had to do with “bottoms” (heh). * * * PETER SAGAL: Last question, President William Howard Taft had the […]
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Would be kind of neat to try with baseball books.
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Another quick attempt to catch up on past stories: This blogger appreciates Dave Jamieson’s Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession, but has a question. C. Trent Rosencrans at CBS’ Eye on Baseball created this lineup of fictional baseball all-stars from the movies, which is similar to the NY Times‘ Neil Genzlinger’s list […]
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Happy New Year, everybody! One of the “resolutions” I’m making this year is to challenge myself more. This mans doing things outside my comfort zone and pushing a bit more. This will include a return to the Podcast edition on a regular basis” and more “intellectual” pursuits than I might have considered in the past. […]
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From MLB/SBNation.
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Just in time for the holidays, here’s her reworking of a Christmas classic, made relevant to baseball fans.
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Sung to the tune of “We didn’t Start the Fire,” by Bill Joel: New York Mets are shutting down, their old ballpark; won’t be found. What’s a proper way to say, “thanks for all that?” Why not host a concert, eh?, Get a mega-star to play. Google You-Tube videos: “Mets-Cubs” and “black cat.” Looking for a […]
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Cy Young or Cy Not? (Can’t believe I got four wrong!)
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Bookshelf friend Tom Hoffarth (he of the annual “30 baseball books in 30 days” feature for the Los Angeles Daily News) posted this amusing item culled from David Javerbaum’s new book, The Last Testament: A Memoir. In short, don’t ask God to help your team; although he’s a sports fan, that’s below his pay grade. […]
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Just returned from vacation in the Berkshires, Hancock, specifically. A very nice place just across from Jiminy Peak. Managed to get a lot of reading done, including two books that will be the subject of reviews. I wanted to give a shout out to Tom and Elizabeth of Elizabeth’s Restaurant in nearby Pittsfield. I bring […]
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Arnold Roth was kind enough to create the caricature I use for everything (including my passport photo), so I have him props whenever I can. This comes from his new blog, Humblug.
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Kevin Youkilis has been on the disabled list for awhile now, but he’s not sitting around idle: And now available: The Making Of _____.
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I contributed a couple of pieces to Mental Floss (including the July-Aug. 2002 cover story for “The Spy Issue”) when they were just knee-high to more established magazines. So I have a soft spot for the publication even if they don’t answer my calls anymore (sniff, sniff). They’ve greatly expanded and now offer a bunch […]
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Actually, I take that back. If these authors had excelled on the diamond, they would have just been a few out of thousands. But as it turns out, baseball’s loss was literature’s gain. According a Mental Floss blog entry on “11 prominent authors who excelled in sports”: Prior to his career as New Journalist and […]
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They never show fans running on to the field because they don’t want to encourage that sort of behavior, but sometimes it can be more entertaining than the actual game. Originally from Sports Illustrated‘s Extra Mustard blog: “A fan ran onto the field during last night’s Cardinals-Mets game. The takedown stinks, but the key here […]
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If Bernard Malamud’s The Natural was supposedly based on the shooting of Eddie Waitkus, where’s a similar volume on Billy Jurges? On this date in 1932 — 17 years before the Waitkus incident — Jurges, a 24-year-old playing for the Cubs, was shot by a “deranged” fan who threatened suicide and but for his lunging […]
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The composer of “Meet the Mets” died June 30 at the age of 84. From the JTA’s Eulogizer blog: Ruth Roberts, 84, wrote ‘Meet the Mets’ Ruth Roberts, a popular song composer whose work was sung by millions of New York Mets fans and the Beatles, among many others, died June 30 at 84. Roberts […]
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From Abebooks.com, a new twist on the old theme of losing one’s prized baseball card: Using it as a place keeper but forgetting to remove it when selling the volume to the local used book store. THE SPORTING “A Mickey Mantle rookie baseball card. It was the original 1952 Topps #311 baseball card and not […]
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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
