Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
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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Van Lingle Mungo, born 100 years ago today, pitched for 14 seasons (1931-43,1945) for the Brooklyn Dodgers and NY Giants. While he wasn’t a superstar, he did win 120 games, including four seasons of 16 or more victories. Somewhere I have a paper I delivered, deconstructing the out the Dave Frishberg song about players from […]
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Here’s something you don’t see every day: a 3-2-6-1-5-3-4-6-8 double play pulled off by the Double-A New Britain Rock Cats against the Binghamton Mets. You need a scorecard with extra large boxes for that one.
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Or, “The Cursed Pen.” What is it with the current batch of players who desire to be writers? First it was Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey who announced in spring training that he was going to pen a memoir. So he’s currently 2-5 with a 4.50 ERA and just came out of his start against the […]
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The American troubadour turned 70 yesterday. So what does Dylan have to do with baseball? (Is that a rhetorical question? Obviously, or I wouldn’t have asked it.) In 2006, Dylan featured baseball music and poetry in his “Theme Time Radio Hour” on XM Satellite Radio. The one-hour program, available on CD, consisted of several of […]
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As long as it’s just one or the other, that’s not too bad… This comes from Great Scot!, a blog from Scot Drucker, a minor league pitcher in the Tigers’ system: “Someone is going to get seriously hurt or injured“
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“MLB probes Dodgers’ Ethier for obscene gesture” Two thoughts: A) What are they hoping to find and where, exactly? B) Isn’t that a bit harsh punishment for flipping the bird to someone?
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“You got to have a lot of little boy in you to play this game.” Even if the game is “just” softball. Thanks to my own senior softball team manager, Sam, for passing this along.
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Because you can put brains on a bookshelf, which is where this guy obviously left his. (Courtesy demotivationals4U.com)
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The veteran pitcher turns 34 today. Last year he gathered some of his teammates to collaborate on the yummy Chicago Cubs Cookbook: All-Star Recipes from Your Favorite Players.
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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 blog 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
